What if we never met?
by KuroKame
Summary: On their way to Alabasta, the Straw Hat Pirates anchors for the night to get some rest. But when crossing unknown waters, you never know who watches you in your sleep.
1. The Dream

**What if we never met?**

By: KuroKame

On their way to Alabasta, the Straw Hat Pirates anchors for the night to get some rest. But getting some decent sleep can be hard, especially when crossing unknown waters.

I actually wrote the first chapter in April this year, but I wasn't sure that I was going to upload it. I have been working on it quite a lot over the summer, and chapter 2 is almost done already. It hasn'tgone through beta(like the rest of my stories...) because I haven't heard from my beta-reader in a while. I just hope that nothing has happened to them... Anyway, I'll take the chance and get on with the story!

And, as always and forever, I don't own One Piece or its characters in any kind of way, which is probably a good thing, since I'd never be able to come up with an amazing storyline like the one Oda-sensei has done.

* * *

"I don't want to be your nakama." 

"No, Luffy-san. Go away."

"Quaaaaaa…"

"Didn't you hear what they said? Go away."

The voices pierced through him like arrows of ice. They were all turning their backs on him; he could feel their presence fade into the dark, misty shadows that surrounded him. All his nakama were leaving him alone in the dark, but not without looking back at him - taunting him in his helplessness. Their voices echoed in his ears, turning into horrible, hollow imitations of his nakama as they vanished into the darkness.

"Like I said, we were just working together temporarily. Don't take it personal."

"No. No more lies, no more stories. No more adventures, Luffy."

"I'm not a pirate. I'm just a reindeer…"

A flash of orange and sky-blue pierced through the darkness as the smell of tangerines, gunpowder and strange herbs tickled his nostrils. One by one, they turned away, their scents fading as they disappeared into the shadows like mirages in a desert. Far away, the sound of waves crashing against the hull of a ship and the creaking of wet wooden planks was transformed into a cackling laughter as another voice called for his attention.

"I don't want to follow a moron like you anymore. I'll find All Blue on my own."

He was gone as well, only a puff of smoke hanging in the thick air, twisting like a transparent snake until it also faded into the shadows. Luffy fell to his knees in the dark that surrounded him, the voices of his nakama echoing in his mind. He reached out his hands, trying to call their names, ordering them – _begging them _– to return to him.

A captain was nothing without his crew, and Luffy was nothing without his nakama. Not a captain, not a Pirate King, nothing at all.

The thickening air got stuck in his throat and no sound passed over his lips, but the sound of his own voice calling for his crew taunted him as it bounced off walls concealed somewhere in the vast darkness, echoing only inside his head.

Alone. They had left him all alone.

A shadow, darker and more firm than the other misty darkness appeared in front of Luffy as the rich smell of blood, sweat and sake filled the air. Looking up, Luffy caught a glimpse of green hair and cold, sharp eyes through the black mists moving around him. Rising to his feet and reaching out his hand towards the familiar shadow, he was greeted by the flash of metal and the shrill song of a sword slicing the very air to shreds. Luffy eyes widened as he felt the presence of the sword right in front of his face. The shock of Zoro turning against him sent a cold, sticky feeling through his body.

"Zoro… Don't you **_dare_** turn your back on me!"

His voice didn't seem to belong to him. It appeared out of the darkness in front of him, somewhere along the blade of the sword that was still pointed directly at him, but he could still hear that it was his voice. His and no one else's. But before his voice could say another word, another voice reached his ears, saying his name with a cold, firm tone, and as it did, the black mists parted, revealing a sight that would forever be imprinted in Luffy's mind.

Zoro was standing in front of him, ready to fight with his swords raised and the black bandana tied around his forehead. But Luffy could feel that it wasn't the Zoro he knew. No, this was the demon so many pirates feared; the infamous Pirate Hunter Zoro. The way his eyes fixated on him was enough proof for Luffy. Zoro had never glared at him like that - except for the one time they had fought fiercely enough to kill each other over a misunderstanding. But this was different, and Luffy knew it. This time, it didn't seem like anything he could think of to say would make Zoro stay.

"Get away from me. I wish I never met you."

The sharp tone in the deep voice caught Luffy off-guard, his outstretched hand falling limply to his side as he stared at his swordsman, the first person to join his clan – the most loyal nakama he ever had. As the owner of the sharp voice also turned away and was swallowed by the shadows, Luffy knew that he was alone. The cackling laughter of the waves grew louder as the invisible water was not crashing into the hull of a ship anymore. Instead, it was flowing over the dark floor, threatening to drown him in its icy coldness as it licked the soles of his bare feet.

Luffy pressed his hands over his ears, trying to shut everything out –the darkness, the water and the laughter. Then he threw his head back and screamed. But his scream was drowned out by another voice, a high-pitched cry that pierced through the darkness like a white-hot needle and made him lose his balance. Falling as if in slow-motion, Luffy felt his hat being swept off his head, and gave up a faint gasp.

He turned his head to look after his hat, following it with his eyes as it whirled around in the darkness. Once the hat touched the floor, the solid surface rippled like water and swallowed the captain's treasure instantly. Luffy's eyes widened as his hat vanished into the black liquid below him. Reaching out his hand towards his lost treasure, he felt his body being jerked upwards just as the darkness around him was dissolved into a grey, blurry fog.

– e – e –

With a loud gasp, the pirate captain sat up in his hammock and looked around in the dimly lit room below deck. He was breathing very fast, and his eyes darted over the familiar surroundings. To his right was the couch, where Zoro was sleeping, and above the swordsman's head was the hammock where their newest nakama, Chopper the doctor was sleeping. To his left, he could see the shadow of Usopp sleeping curled up in his hammock, just as always. Breathing deeply to calm down, Luffy slowly convinced himself that it had only been a bad dream. All his nakama were still with him. As he looked down in front of him, he let out a sigh of relief. His hat was also still with him. It was lying in the same place at the foot side of his hammock where he had put it before he went to sleep. He picked it up, his fingers gently caressing the many stitches in the material before he put it on his head.

Sleepily scratching the back of his neck and pressing the hat further down over his black hair, Luffy swung his legs over the edge of his hammock. The bottomless pit that served as his stomach was howling for food, and he had to admit that he wouldn't say no to something to eat. Silently, the captain slid down from his hammock, landing soundlessly on the wooden floor below and looked around to make sure that no one had woken up. A mischievous grin played across his face as the only sound that was heard was the snores of his nakama.

Luffy was so used to the surroundings that he didn't need any more light than the thin rays of moonlight that shone in through the small holes in the ceiling to know where everything in the room was. There was, however, one thing – or well, _person_ – who kept moving around all over the ship. And that was Sanji. Luffy had found that his cook never slept in the same place two nights in a row, which of course made it harder for the captain to sneak out to get a midnight snack.

Tripping over a sleeping Sanji while trying to swipe the meat prepared for the next day's dinner wasn't something Luffy enjoyed very much. That was even worse than falling into one of Sanji's creative traps. Because even if Luffy had learnt to make out where the giant mouse-traps or the snares were hidden, Sanji always came up with new traps and ways to protect his kitchen.

Then again, Luffy was always up for the challenge to get past the traps and the cook guarding the precious meat.

Encouraged by the thought of getting a chance to fill his always empty stomach, Luffy had almost completely forgotten about his nightmare. He slowly moved from the place where his hammock hung from the ceiling towards the mast, careful not to make too much noise that could wake his nakama. Just as he put his hand on the ladder to climb up to the main deck, a loud cry followed by low muttering voices made him jump and turned around. His eyes darted around, trying to find the source to the noise.

In the bunk to his left in front of him, his long-nosed marksman was tossing and turning, clearly suffering from a bad dream. In fact, when Luffy looked around in the room once more, he noticed that everyone in the room seemed to be having nightmares. He was also happy to notice that he was able to locate where Sanji was sleeping once the cook joined in the muttering.

The green-haired swordsman was lying sprawled over the couch, the blue-nosed reindeer in his hammock above Zoro's head, the long-nosed sniper in his bunk and the blond cook sitting with his back against the mast only a few decimeters from where Luffy was standing – all of them were muttering in their sleep and moving idly without waking up. Luffy was used to waking up and hearing his nakama talking, arguing or even fighting in their sleep, and he never really paid any attention to it. He didn't intend to let it bother him this time either, since he knew that as long as Sanji was talking in his sleep, the cook wasn't going to keep him from taking a midnight snack.

Just when Luffy was about to climb up the ladder to the deck above, he heard the voices of his nakama whispering his name, one by one. Frowning, he turned back to the dark room, his eyes moving from Zoro on the couch to Chopper, Sanji and Usopp. Their voices blended with each other and with the sound of waves slapping against the hull on the starboard side as they continued talking in their sleep.

"That ship… it's destroyed… what happened to it? The pirates were starving, but now… Pati… Carne… Owner Zeff… Am I all alone?"

"They're coming… the pirates… I have to protect Kaya… No one believes me… I'm all alone against the pirates…"

"He's back… Wapol… Doctorine… The island is in danger… I'm alone!"

Luffy blinked. Even if he only caught fragments of what the others were saying, he couldn't help but feel that their words sounded familiar. His mind was still focused on the food waiting up in the kitchen, so when he tried to think of why his friends' words were sounding so familiar, only faded images of battles flashed before his eyes. Somehow, the battles all felt important, but the hunger soon pushed the images away and urged him to hurry up and get to the kitchen before he woke someone up. Then, in the middle of the low murmur, Luffy heard Zoro's growling voice and looked over at the swordsman on the couch.

"I'll survive a month, like I promised… I'll show that stupid son… I'm on my own… I don't need anyone else…"

A deafening silence fell as the sleeping crew stopped muttering in their sleep at once. It was only broken by the occasional snore from one or two of the men in the room, the tapping sound of Luffy's bare feet as he climbed the ladder and the light creaking of the hatch in the ceiling as the captain climbed up onto the main deck.

The moon hung in the black sky over the ship, surrounded by at least a million twinkling stars. In Luffy's hunger-driven mind, it reminded him of the ice cream with liquorice-sauce and sprinkles that Sanji had made for Vivi and Nami the day before. Feeling his stomach growling for food, Luffy looked around over the deck to make sure that there wasn't anyone else there. Then, he slowly crept up the stairs towards the galley, grinning widely as he thought of the food that waited for him inside the kitchen. But as he came up the stairs, he found an obstacle blocking his way. Carue, Vivi's giant spot-billed duck was sleeping in front of the door to the galley with his head under his left wing. If he woke the duck up while sneaking into the room, Luffy would have to share the food with him, and that wasn't something he wanted to do.

Luffy frowned and moved closer to Carue as silently as he could. He slowly reached out his hand towards the handle, turned the doorknob and carefully pushed the door open. Carue quacked quietly when Luffy stepped over him, but didn't wake up. Luffy grinned happily as he quietly shut the door behind him. Now it was only him and the precious food, and no one nearby to keep them apart any longer.

A few minutes later, Luffy pushed the last empty plate to the side where he sat alone by the table in the galley, patted his stomach and sighed. The food he had taken from the fridge hadn't been nearly enough to satisfy his hunger. Instead, he was feeling hungrier than before. That wasn't a nice feeling, but he managed to gather enough willpower to resist getting up from the table to get seconds – there wasn't much food left, and Luffy was definitely looking forward to eating breakfast later. Also, Nami had said that it probably would take more than ten days to reach Alabasta, and that the food supplies had to last until then. To Luffy, this simply meant that Sanji wouldn't let him have food when he wanted it anymore. But it would sure be nice to have just one more piece of meat…

Leaning forward over the table, Luffy folded his arms and stared out into the darkness. His eyelids were starting to feel heavy, and he thought of going back to the quarters below deck to get some more sleep, but decided that the table was just as good to sleep on as his hammock. While he tried to find a comfortable spot to lean his head, the nightmare from before returned to his mind. It lingered in his thoughts like nightmares tend to do, but as Luffy slowly drifted off to sleep, only one sentence kept buzzing inside his head with his swordsman's voice.

_I wish I never met you._

Just before Luffy felt the world fade into complete darkness, one question appeared in his mind. If he hadn't met his nakama – the people who meant the most to him in the whole wide world – what would have happened to them?

* * *

To Be Continued... -cackle- 

_So, what did you think? Too cheesy? Too weird? Too lame? Well, don't be afraid to tell me... I'm not overly protective about this story... Yet._


	2. The Swordsman

A bright light caused the future Pirate King to flinch. Blinking repeatedly, he looked around to spot the one holding the very bright light next to his eyes. All his nakama knew that he didn't like to be surprised like that, so why were they waking him up in such a brutal way? However, there was something strange about the light. Since when did a lantern directed at his face warm his entire body?

Once his eyes got used to the bright light, Luffy realized that he wasn't aboard the Going Merry any more. He was lying in the middle of a huge market square, where people walked past him without even looking at him. One or two of them were even close to stepping on him, but Luffy rolled out of their way and got up from the ground. As he brushed the dust off his clothes, he noticed that he was wearing his sandals, and that his hat was gone. He couldn't remember either putting on his sandals or taking off his hat before he fell asleep.

Running his fingers through his black hair, he looked around the market, feeling like he knew the place from somewhere. The townspeople were flinching every time a dog barked, and the way they were constantly looking over their shoulder before speaking to each other confused Luffy.

After watching the townspeople for a moment, Luffy shrugged and decided to take a walk around the town until he could find a way to return to his ship. Maybe someone had found his hat somewhere as well. In any case, both his ship and his hat would show up eventually. They always did.

As he walked, he kept looking at the townspeople when he passed them. None of them seemed to take any notice of him, not even when he walked past two Marines by the town's old well. When he walked past the Marines, he stopped for a moment and turned around. A man with dirty-blond hair and a silly-looking face was accompanying the Marines, and looking at him sent off warning-bells in Luffy's mind – a memory of a broken promise and a man with an enormous axe for a hand rose to the surface but faded again.

"It's that stupid son…" Luffy muttered, folding his arms across his chest as he followed the blond man with his eyes. "What's he doing here?"

He stood still for a moment, watching the three men make their way through the crowd of people. The townspeople hurried out of the way as soon as they spotted the blond man and got down on the ground in a wavelike movement, clearly bowing out of pure fear. Luffy turned away and began walking again. He wasn't sure where he was going, but he figured that he would end up somewhere interesting if he just followed the main street for a while.

There was a large building at the center of the island, on top of which a giant statue was standing. If he could climb up on that statue's head, he would surely get a great view of the whole island. Then he could see if his ship was somewhere around the island, and wouldn't have to think about that anymore. Excited by the idea, Luffy set off running towards the tall building.

Running like the wind along the main street, Luffy soon found himself on a collision-course with a tall concrete wall that seemed to have come from nowhere. Without any chance to avoid it or slow down, the pirate captain slammed into the wall head-first, slowly sliding down to the ground where he stayed for a moment or two, wondering why anyone would put a wall in the middle of the road like that. Deciding that he could always ask someone about that stuff later, Luffy tumbled back from the wall and looked up at the tall building that stretched up towards the skies in front of him.

There was a Marine symbol on the side of the tall, drum-shaped building – Luffy remembered that he had seen the same logo many times before. This only made the feeling of having seen the place before grow stronger inside him. He was getting curious of the high wall, wondering what could be hidden behind it. There was a large wooden gate a few meters away to his right, but just as Luffy was getting up from the ground to walk over to it, he heard a strange sound coming from behind the wall. Luffy wasn't aware that it was a sound that normally shouldn't have reached his ears through the wall, and even if he had known that, he hardly wouldn't have cared since he was hearing it anyway.

Shoes scraping against sand, dry ropes creaking as they were rubbed against each other and faint, hoarse breaths – all mixed into one strange noise. All this was very familiar, and as Luffy's curiosity grew even stronger, he reached up for the edge of the wall and rocketed himself up onto it, looking out over the large square yard behind it.

In the middle of the Marine exercise-yard stood a large pole, which Luffy knew was used to publicly humiliate or even execute criminals. Through the dust and the thick hot air over the yard, the pirate could clearly see the dark, slumped form of a man tied to the pole with his arms stretched out to the sides. It was a sight that was far too familiar to be just a figment of his imagination.

For a moment, Luffy just looked at the scene in front of him. He sat down on top of the wall, trying to figure out why Zoro was tied to the pole in the yard, when he knew that he had seen the swordsman sleep on the couch below deck aboard the Going Merry not such a long time earlier. Zoro also looked strange where he stood by the wooden pole. Not only did he look more parched and starved than he had the first time Luffy had seen him, but he looked down right… weak. The way his head hanged down with his face pointed towards the ground and the way his whole body trembled for every breath he took confused Luffy. Zoro had never been weak, and definitely like this.

Luffy was just about to call out to his swordsman to remind him that Zoro wasn't supposed to be weak, when a set of wooden doors opened in the large drum-shaped building on the other side of the yard. Turning to the newly opened gates, Luffy watched the silly-looking blond man walk into the yard, accompanied not only by the two Marines from before, but four additional soldiers. They didn't seem to notice Luffy where he was sitting on top of the wall, but the pirate captain could clearly see the guns the soldiers were carrying. Sitting quietly on top of the wall, Luffy idly scratched an itchy spot on the bridge of his nose as he watched the blond man lead the Marines towards Zoro. He didn't know what was going on, but he was happy to find that he could hear every word that was said, even if he was so far away from the other men.

Axe-hand Morgan's son chuckled as he came up in front of his prisoner. He looked down at the weakened bounty-hunter whom so many had called a demon, and laughed. Reaching out his hand, he let it drop heavily onto the bound man's head, pushing the black bandana a bit further down over the swordsman's eyes.

"Still alive, aren't you?" he said cheerily, as if he was talking to an old friend instead of a dying prisoner.

Zoro gave up a hoarse laugh without looking up. His breath rattled in his chest as he fought to answer the man keeping him bound. To Luffy, it almost seemed like Zoro was using most of his energy just to keep on breathing. Therefore, he felt both a little concerned, yet very proud when his swordsman made other sounds than the hoarse gasps for air.

"Disappointed?" Zoro asked dryly, his face still pointing towards the ground. "I said that I'd survive a month. It's only three more days now."

"Yes, it's been such a long time, hasn't it? Well, I've been enjoying it so far, how about you? But you are boring me now, so…"

Morgan's son smirked and made a gesture towards the six armed soldiers. The Marines raised their weapons and aimed them directly at Zoro. When the clicking sound of the cocks of the guns being pulled back reached the swordsman's ears, his head jerked up and he stared at the blond man while trying to keep the muscles in his neck from trembling with exhaustion.

"You- What about your promise?" Zoro spluttered, the muscles in his weakened body tensing as he fought the ropes tying him to the pole. His eyes widened below the black band tied around his head as he turned his gaze towards the Marines in front of him.

"One thing you need to learn is that some promises are made to be broken," the blond man said, once again smirking at Zoro. "Oh, but then again… You won't live to make use of that knowledge."

He turned to the soldiers and gave the order to fire, shortly followed by the threat to report their disobedience to Morgan if they didn't do what they were told. The six soldiers glanced quickly at the commander's son, all of them looking very nervous before they raised their weapons again.

In the blink of an eye, Luffy jumped down from the wall, his heart hammering violently in his chest. This was not what was supposed to happen. Why was Zoro standing there about to die when he was supposed to be free and on his way to One Piece with Luffy? The captain started running as fast as he could towards the crowd, his fists clenched tightly.

"ZORO!"

The men ahead of him didn't turn around as Luffy cried out his first mate's name, and not even Zoro turned to look his way. Neither did they notice when he stopped running, took aim and sent away his left leg in a wide circle towards the soldiers.

"Gomu Gomu no Whip!" he cried out, his voice carrying a slightly desperate tone as it echoed over the yard.

Turning his head to follow up with another attack, his eyes widened in shock as his outstretched leg swept right through the Marines instead of throwing them to the ground. His leg swept through the men as if they were nothing but smoke, and when it snapped back to its place, Luffy was thrown back by the force of his own attack. He whirled around in the air before landing on his stomach on the ground, coughing as he inhaled at least a bucket of dry sand.

The sound of the first shot echoed across the yard. Luffy jerked his head up and stared at Zoro with wide eyes as the sand rattled in his throat. The swordsman threw his head back against the pole he was tied to as blood sprayed from a fresh wound in his stomach, but he didn't make a single sound. More gunshots were heard and each time Zoro was hit, his body jerked and his muscles tensed, but no sound passed his lips.

Luffy wanted to scream, he wanted to attack the Marines – beat them all senseless for killing the most loyal man in the world – but most of all, he wanted to get up and shield his nakama from the bullets with his body like he had done so many times before. But he couldn't move. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't do anything else than watch the bullets bury themselves deep in his swordsman's flesh while the sound of the gunshots echoed in his ears, the small metal fragments tearing Zoro's life from his body little by little in front of Luffy's eyes.

Once the gunfire stopped, no sound was heard for a few seconds. Then Zoro's head fell forward, and his whole body was slumped against the ropes tying him to the pole. Morgan's son looked satisfied and ordered the Marines to follow him. As the seven men walked away from the yard, Luffy felt the surroundings getting hazier and hazier around him. The light from the sun was fading, but as the darkness around him and Zoro grew thicker, Luffy noticed that no matter how dark the surroundings became, he could still see Zoro's slumped body by the pole in front of him. Watching his first mate through the darkness, he heard something that made his heart skip a beat.

A wheezing breath echoed in the increasing darkness, a gasp for air to fill punctured lungs on the verge of collapse. The trance that kept Luffy paralyzed vanished, but he didn't get up. He couldn't feel the sand under his fingertips anymore, and he couldn't see anything but Zoro's bloodstained body propped up against the wooden pole like some hay-filled training doll. But he could hear Zoro's pained, wheezing breath just as clear as if the swordsman had been right next to him. The captain stared at his swordsman, white-hot anger boiling inside him as he cursed the stupid son for letting Zoro suffer like that.

"You were right… I was… too weak…"

The calm voice cut through the darkness, and Luffy felt a rush of anticipation flowing through his body. He already knew that Zoro was strong enough to survive anything; of course he could survive this if he just wanted to. But as nothing but silence followed the last wheezing breath, all emotions were drained from Luffy's body. All that remained was a cold, throbbing pain in his chest that grew stronger and stronger. A cry was building inside him as the pain grew sharper, up to the point where he couldn't hold it back any more. He pressed his forehead against the black floor and screamed.

"**ZORO!**"

Luffy lifted his head and slammed it back against the black surface he was lying on, trying to block out his rubber ability that otherwise would keep him from feeling the dull pain spreading out from his forehead. He wanted to drown out the sharp throbbing in his chest, and he didn't know of anything that worked more effectively than another, newer pain.

After slamming his head against the ground repeatedly for a moment, Luffy finally let his body relax. He sank down on his stomach with his forehead resting against the blackness under him. The silence - which was only broken by his own swift, sharp breaths - pressed against his ears, and he wished that Zoro was just teasing him; that his swordsman was going to start breathing again and tell him that it was all a stupid joke. But Zoro didn't move, and neither did Luffy. He was lying on the invisible floor, stubbornly listening for any hint of life his first mate could give, hints that he already knew wouldn't come.

Suddenly, he was aware of a presence closing up on him, but he couldn't make out from where it was coming because of the dizziness that followed his self-inflicted headache. Instead, what caught his attention was a calm, deep voice coming from his left.

"It hurts, doesn't it? Losing your nakama… I know. I've felt it too."

Luffy's eyes widened as he heard the voice, and he pushed himself from the black floor to turn towards the direction it had come from. As his vision flowed back into focus, the pirate captain saw a tall figure standing in front of him, completely concealed under a heavy white cloak. His face was hidden in shadows, but Luffy knew somehow that the mysterious man in front of him was smiling.

"Who are you?" he asked, getting up from the floor to face the stranger, his face twisted in a grimace of rage. "Did you do this to Zoro?"

The man in front of him didn't seem to be bothered by the rage radiating from Luffy, because he didn't even flinch as he met the pirate captain's furious gaze.

"Who I am?" he asked calmly. "I'm the King of Pirates."

* * *

_Kame: -shrieks and points- Cliffhanger! Who made the cliffhanger!_

_Zoro: -rolls his eyes-**You** did._

_Kame: -pauses and blinks- Oh yeah, you're right... I forgot._

_Zoro: Riight... And what's up with this story? Like hell I would have died there, you damn author._

_Kame: You just keep telling yourself that, Zoro-kun..._

_Zoro: I told you,stop calling me that!_

_Kame: I'm fully entitled to call you Zoro-kun, Zoro-kun. You're a year younger than me, and before you beat Mihawk, there's no way I'm calling you anything else._

_Zoro: -growls- One of these days, I'm going to kill you..._

_Kame: I'll be waiting for that day._

_Please excuse him, you all know how he is... Anyway,that concludes chapter two. It might take a while for the next chapter to get uploaded, since I'm currently drowning in homework, being the procrastinator I am. But fear not, it will arrive... someday. Now, let's answer some reviews, shall we?_

_**em182** - Loved it? Now I can feel my head growing about three sizes... You know, I don't think I've ever been called 'Kame-swan' before. But hey, I could get used to it -big cheesy grin accompanied by eyebrow-wiggling- Um... sorry about that... I'll try to keep up the angst in the rest of the chapters, which might not be hard once I get surrounded by fall-depressed people._

_**FieryKitsune** - I was going for a little creepiness in this story, and I'm glad it worked. I've actually been in a situation kind of like this one.I was having a sleepover withfour of my friends, and I woke up in the middle of the night, only to find them all talking and whispering in their sleep. Of course, it wasn't just as in this story, but it was still creepy. I slept the rest of the night with my head under my pillow. nn;_

_**Vespera** - Aww, is the story that transparent? Hee hee hee, I know it is. Well, we'll see where the story takes us, right? I think that there is more to Luffy than what we see. I can only speak for myself, but to be able to think of all his attacks and such, I'd think he has a more vivid imagination than I have. Heh..._


	3. The Navigator

Alright, I present this chapter as a birthday present for em182, who turns 18 today. I hope that your day will be filled with joy, cake and lots of presents. Happy Birthday. :D

I don't know if I managed to keep up the same angst as in the previous chapter, but I tried... Anyway, read and try to enjoy it.

Oh, right! Also, if there are any words crammed together, it is all because of the edit-tool. I'vechecked this chapter five times on different occasions, word by word, so I'm sure that there are no run-ons when I upload it. I don't know why the quickedit likes to add them, but it's really annoying...

* * *

Luffy stared at the cloaked stranger for a moment, slowly raising one eyebrow as he tried to process the words the man had just said.

"The King of Pirates..?" he said after a while. "So…You're Gold Roger?"

The stranger tilted his head lightly to the side in a gesture Luffy recognized as the way his nakama reacted to some things he said. But instead of screaming at him or correcting him, the cloaked man started to laugh. It was a hollow, emotionless laughter that made Luffy's skin crawl.

"Just the kind of reply I expected to hear from you," he said in a voice that seemed to have been meant to sound cheerful, but really wasn't. Then, he continued in a fuller, more serious tone. "No, I'm not Gold Roger. I'm the new Pirate King."

"Not for long," Luffy stated, moving his left hand to his chest, where the pain still made itself known. It felt almost as if something was gnawing on his insides, and it wasn't a nice feeling. "I'm the man who's gonna be the King of Pirates!"

"So I've heard," the stranger said casually and laughed again. Luffy didn't join in the laughter. The hollow sound of the laughter made his skin crawl and he couldn't have laughed even if he wanted to. The image of Zoro being executed was still too fresh in his mind and was putting a heavy damper on his usual cheerful mood.

The sound of the laughter echoed eerily around them, and to Luffy, it sounded as if they were surrounded by invisible walls that were closing in on them. When he looked around to try to spot one or two of the walls, he noticed that the execution pole and Zoro's body was gone. He couldn't see any trace of his swordsman anywhere in the blackness that surrounded him, and that made him angry.

"Where. Is. Zoro?" he demanded to know, reaching out a hand to grab hold of the stranger's white cloak. His other hand clutched the red cloth of his vest tightly as the pain in his chest gave an extra nasty throb. "What did you do with him? Why did you do this to Zoro?"

His rage still didn't seem to have any effect on the stranger. The man's face was still concealed in shadows, even from the short distance, but Luffy didn't feel any sign of fear from him. In fact, he realized that he didn't feel a thing, except for the occasional change in the man's facial expressions.

Not only was it really odd that he could feel the changes in his facial expressions, but it was even weirder that the man in the cloak didn't seem to feel anything at all. It was either that, or that he just was very good at hiding his feelings.

No matter what the reason was, Luffy didn't like it. It felt like he was talking to a moving statue, and everyone knew that you never could be sure what a statue would do next. Especially not one that moved.

"I haven't done anything to your nakama," the cloaked man said seriously, and Luffy could feel the stranger's eyes meeting his through the shadows of the hood. "Like I said before, I know how you feel. I've already lost all of mine…"

"All your nakama?" Luffy's body relaxed a bit, and his hands dropped to his sides, but he still stared furiously at the man in the white hood. "How?"

"Never mind that," the stranger said abruptly. "We don't have all day. Let's go."

"Go?" Luffy blinked as the stranger walked past him. He still couldn't feel anything from the man, not even the tiniest bit of wind as he walked by. "Go where?"

The man in the cloak didn't answer, but Luffy got the feeling that the stranger was smiling again. He watched silently as the cloaked man lifted one hand and moved it in a wide circle in the darkness. The shadows that surrounded them suddenly parted and faded away, revealing a completely deserted street in a small town. Luffy stood silent for a moment, but then his jaw dropped out of amazement and the other man laughed again.

"How did you do that?" Luffy asked excitedly, momentarily forgetting about the pain inside him. "It's like magic!"

"It doesn't matter," was the only reply he got. Thinking for a second, Luffy decided that it really didn't matter. It was probably just as complicated to understand as when Luffy had asked Nami a simple question about clouds. He couldn't remember a word his navigator had said, but her explanation had sure been long and very hard to understand. Therefore, he had decided to add clouds to his growing list of mysterious things in the world, and be happy with that.

He followed the man out onto the deserted street, looking around for any people who could be hiding inside the wooden houses. There didn't seem to be a single soul nearby, and the only sound that was heard except Luffy's footsteps against the cobblestone street was the sound of a door creaking somewhere along the street. When he turned his head forwards again, the man in the cloak, who had been walking in front of him, was gone. Blinking, Luffy wondered where the mysterious man could have gone in such a short time.

The sound of angry voices pulled his attention to the end of the street, and he turned towards the noise, looking at the approaching figures with wide eyes. So the town wasn't completely deserted after all?

"Come back here, you thieving bitch!" one of the angry voices called out, loud enough for Luffy to hear it. The pirate captain frowned. A thief? Was he supposed to do something about it? _Well_, he thought to himself, _if they need help, they'll ask for it_.

But as the four people came running closer, Luffy saw that the one being chased was a girl. He stepped aside as the girl ran past him with the three suspicious-looking men closing up on her, and he let his eyes follow her as she continued down the street. When the men passed by him, Luffy could hear them argue between themselves.

"This is bad," one of them said. "We have to catch her before she gets away with the map!"

"You dun' have to tell me that," another one replied with a growl. "You know as well as I do what the captain will do to us if that girl gets away with the map!"

"Don't talk, just catch her!" the third man panted, pushing the two others to run faster.

Luffy looked after the running people, wondering why no one paid attention to him. Shrugging, he decided to follow the running people. After all, whatever it was Nami had got herself into, Luffy figured that he might be able to help her. He was also very curious about the map they had been talking about. Maps usually meant treasure or adventures, or sometimes even both.

As he walked through the town, Luffy looked at the empty, dark houses with a blank look on his face. There really was an eerie silence hovering over the whole town – a silence that wasn't even broken by the twitter of birds. It felt like every living being had left the place in a hurry. But why would anyone leave such a nice-looking place?

There was even the faint smell of burned food coming from a few of the buildings, which was a smell Luffy wasn't used to, at least he hadn't felt it in a while. Not since the day he got Sanji as his cook.

Luffy missed the Going Merry, and he wondered if Sanji had noticed that he had stolen food again. He really hoped that he'll find both his hat and his ship soon, because he was getting tired of coming to new places all the time. New places that seemed really familiar in some way.

The sound of his sandals slip-slopping against the cobblestone street bounced faintly between the houses while he walked, but as Luffy came out on a small market square, the echo died out. In front of him, the first thing that caught his eye was a small white dog sitting quietly on the stairs to one of the buildings, looking at nothing in particular. The dog turned its head towards him when he came closer to it, and it growled silently as it followed him with its eyes.

"The dog…" Luffy said quietly, looking up at the large sign which announced that the building housed a pet food-store. "Its treasure still stands…"

He looked down at the dog outside the entrance to the old store as he walked by, the memory of the building engulfed in flames and the dog's heartbreaking wails echoing between the walls of the surrounding houses rising to the surface of his mind. But everything seemed to be fine at the moment, so Luffy decided to try to find Nami and those other guys who were chasing her instead.

A high-pitched scream suddenly rang between the walls and Luffy immediately recognized his navigator's voice. Running down the nearest alley, he caught a glimpse of the men who had been chasing Nami as they turned around a corner further down the street, the captured girl held tightly between them.

"Nami!" Luffy called out as he ran down the alley, skidded over the cobblestone and turned the corner on one foot.

The street was deserted. There wasn't even a single sound that betrayed where Nami and her captors had gone. Luffy clenched his teeth as he kept running, allowing his instincts to lead the way.

Turning around another corner and then another and another, Luffy could always feel Nami ahead of him, just out of sight. Therefore, he kept on running without even stopping to catch his breath.

Just as he thought he had lost them, because he couldn't sense Nami anymore, Luffy came out on another small market square, which was a little more crowded than the first.

Everywhere he looked, he saw clowns walking, bouncing and tumbling into each other in what looked like party activities. Over the noise the clowns were making, a very familiar laughter echoed down from the roof of one of the nearby buildings, and Luffy looked up towards the sound.

"Wa ha ha ha! You caught the thief! Well done, boys, now enjoy yourself, it's a party!"

Spurred by the familiar voice that reached him even from such a distance, Luffy reached up towards the roof of the nearest building and rocketed himself into the air. None of the clowns made any movement that showed that they had spotted him, even when he landed on the roof and almost fell backwards off the building because his foot slipped.

When he had steadied himself, he set off running towards the next building, leaping from house to house while he always kept his eyes on the large crowd that had gathered around a tent on the roof from which the familiar voice had come from. That voice meant trouble, and he could feel it in every muscle in his body.

"Thief? No, no, you're mistaken," he heard Nami say while she laughed nervously. "I just wanted to return it to you, Captain Buggy, sir. But these three tried to take it, so I ran…"

"Mistaken? Oh no, I don't think so," said the voice that had laughed earlier. "You see, we saw you stealing the map we stole. Do you know what I do with thieves who dare to steal what is mine?"

There was a short moment of silence before the clowns outside the tent broke out in cheers. Luffy leaned out from the roof to see better, and his fingers gripped the edge firmly as he watched the crowd split up and move aside as Nami floated through the air, her hands clawing wildly at something by her neck.

Luffy's eyes widened and he threw himself off the roof onto another, lower one, from which he could reach the platform where the clowns were standing. He landed hard on his feet, catching himself with one hand against the ground, and looked up at Nami, who was floating freely in the air, supported only by a body-less hand clasped tightly around her throat.

Coughing and fighting to get free, Nami clawed at the hand around her throat, her eyes wide in shock as she clearly tried to come up with a plan to escape.

"No! I -gkh-… I'm serious…" She coughed, keeping her eyes locked at something still concealed inside the tent. "You see… -kh-… My boss… He told me to st… to steal the map, but… agh… We had a fight and… and now he's dead, so…"

"Whose nose is red!" shrieked the other voice from inside the tent. Luffy turned his head towards the voice just as a loud crash of a chair falling over was heard.

A tall man wearing a long, fur-edged orange cape, an orange hat with something that looked like blue tassels hanging down at the sides and clothes with very clashing colors stepped out from the tent, a very smug expression all over his face. He had painted a crossbones-sign in his forehead and had a big, round and red clown nose. This was someone Luffy recognized, but he couldn't think of the man's name. He thought he remembered that it began with a B, but he wasn't sure.

All he was certain of was that this was a man whom he had seen on more than one occasion, and he came to think of knives and, surprisingly enough, of Shanks when he looked at the pirate in front of him.

"Guys! Let's show her what happens when someone pisses me off! Take out a Buggy Ball!"

It wasn't until now that Luffy noticed the large cannon standing in the middle of the roof. Neither had he noticed that Nami was hanging in mid air a few meters in front of the barrel of the cannon, and now one of the clowns was walking up to it to light the short fuse.

Luffy quickly jumped up and ran towards the man lighting the fuse. What was going on here? First he had been forced to see Zoro die, even though he knew for sure that Zoro was alive aboard the Going Merry. And now Nami's life was threatened as well, even if Luffy was pretty sure that a long time ago, _she_ had been the one being forced to light the fuse of a similar cannon aimed at _him_. He could still vaguely remember being enclosed in a small cage with people around him chanting _"Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!"_ over and over again.

"Gomu Gomu no Pistol!" he shouted, letting his fist fly towards the clown holding the box of matches. No one took any notice of him, but he didn't care. All he cared about was to stop the clown from lighting that fuse.

The clown didn't even flinch as Luffy's fist reached him - and passed right through him as if he was nothing but a mirage or a veil of smoke! Surprised by the lack of an actual body to land his punch against, Luffy yelped as he was pulled along by his own attack and flew through the clown pirate's body to land in the dust on the other side.

The moment he landed on the floor, he pulled up his legs under him and jumped up again. Very well, if he couldn't stop the clown, he just had to stop the cannonball.

Just as the fuse disappeared into the cannon, Nami gave up a choked cry and Luffy threw himself in the path of the cannonball.

The explosion was deafening, and alongside the cannonball, an enormous tongue of fire shot out from the cannon. It didn't even singe Luffy's hair or clothes where he was located right in front of the weapon's mouth, but he could still feel the smell of burned hair as Nami's scream pierced through the ringing in his ears.

"**Nami!**"

Luffy braced himself to capture the cannonball and keep it from hurting Nami. Like in slow-motion, he could feel his body stretching as the cannonball hit him - the feeling of a heavy, round object pushing against his insides was all too familiar to him - but just as he thought that he had it under control, he felt the weight of the projectile sinking right through him, and his pounding heart skipped at least three painful beats.

Just as Luffy landed on the floor again, one last scream was heard through the thick wall of grey smoke that had formed after the cannon had been fired. He looked up, calling his navigator's name, but received no answer. Waving his hands in front of his face, he tried to get rid of the smoke that made his eyes sting and his lungs burn, but the haze only thickened, drowning out everything but the cackling laughter of the clowns as they returned to their party.

Once the smoke had settled, and was no longer irritating his eyes, Luffy looked around only to find that the place was completely deserted. The clowns were gone and so was the tent and the large cannon. Nami was also gone without a trace.

Luffy froze where he was standing as he heard a soft chuckle coming from behind him. He turned around and found the man in the white cloak standing in the exact same place as where the cannon had been placed only a moment earlier. The man's face was still hidden in shadows under the hood, but there was no way Luffy could fail to notice the light, cheerful tone in his hollow laughter.

"What are you laughing at?" Luffy asked hotly, feeling the rage bubbling up inside him again. "Where's Nami? I can feel her. She's not dead, so where is she?"

The man in the cloak stopped laughing and made a movement that looked like a shrug. "You're right, she isn't dead. The cannonball miraculously missed her. Can you believe it? Your precious navigator was forced to live."

Luffy blinked. He was relieved to know that Nami wasn't dead, and that he wasn't imagining the feeling of her being close by, but he didn't like the carefree way the person in front of him was talking about his navigator.

"Wha--" he started, but was cut off as the other man raised his hand from under the cloak and pointed over Luffy's shoulder. Luffy's eyes lingered on the man's hand for a brief moment before he turned around, taking in the image of the lean, bony hand and wrist, both which were covered in rough scars that didn't seem to have healed properly. Something about that sight only made him feel less comfortable around the man in the cloak. He didn't like that he couldn't see who he was dealing with here, and his instincts told him that the man had something to do with what was happening to his nakama, no matter how much he was denying it.

When Luffy reluctantly turned around (not without wishing for a pair of eyes in the back of his head so that he could watch the stranger's movements), he saw that the surroundings had changed completely. They were not on the roof of a deserted building anymore, but they were standing by the window inside a small, dark room, where the walls were covered with maps, and piles of paper rose to the ceiling from all over the floor.

Glancing at the man in the white cloak, who was standing perfectly still and watching him, Luffy moved towards one of the smaller piles and looked down at the papers. The topmost paper was a detailed drawing of a group of islands that Luffy had never heard of before. Still, he could somehow recognize the maps, and they made him straighten up and look around in the room.

"Nami..."

He turned around towards the door by the sound of a choked sob. Leaning to the left and peering between the mounds of paper, he could see a small writing-desk by the opposite wall, and someone who was sitting hunched over it. Looking closer at the person, he recognized Nami, but she looked very different. Luffy's heart abandoned its usual rhythm as he walked closer, and seemed to be beating much slower and harder than before.

Nami was wearing a thick bandana wrapped tightly around her head, and Luffy couldn't see a single strand of her orange hair sticking out from under it anywhere. Her face, lower arms and chest wore severe burn marks, almost as if parts of her had been on fire. She was crying while she moved her pen across yet another paper, and she constantly wiped her eyes to keep the tears from staining her new map. Not that it would have mattered, Luffy thought as he saw the smeared drops of blood already staining the paper in several places.

She didn't even notice that Luffy was there, not even as the captain leaned forward to look at the map she was drawing. This time, he didn't have to read the name of the island that was depicted on the paper to know why he recognized it. It was a perfect drawing of the island where he had grown up. Even the little harbor where he had once met Shanks for the first time was there. Luffy didn't know how to read maps, but the navigator in Shanks' clan had once showed him a map over the island and tried to teach him about mapping. The image of the island seen from above was somehow the only thing that had been imprinted in his mind.

Suddenly, Nami sat up straight in her chair, clutching her left upper arm with a pained expression on her face. Luffy had quickly backed away to keep his face from colliding with the back of Nami's head, and when he turned to look at her, he noticed something blue on her arm beneath her fingers. It was her tattoo, but as Nami removed her hand to wipe her eyes once more, Luffy could see that it wasn't the shape of a pinwheel like he was used to see every day. It was the picture of a sawfish, which Luffy remembered as Arlongs mark, the mark that had caused Nami so much pain once.

Yes, Luffy could remember Arlong well. He could remember being thrown into the water with a block of concrete around his feet, and he definitely remembered this room. The room where Nami was held as a prisoner against her will. But he could have _sworn_ that he had destroyed this room. He could remember how the ceiling had come crashing down over him and that the whole building finally had collapsed completely.

"I want to be free…" Nami mumbled, covering her scarred face with her hands. "Bellemere… help me…!"

Tears were flowing down her cheeks again, but just as Luffy reached out for her, he could hear steps outside the door and looked up. The door opened with a loud bang and darkness flooded the room in a matter of seconds, blinding Luffy while a hard, ruthless laughter rang in his ears.

"_Sha ha ha haa!"_

Groping blindly in the darkness that was now surrounding him completely, he tried to find his navigator. But his fingers found nothing but emptiness when he reached out for her and his voice only echoed hollowly when he called her name, and there was no answer. This didn't discourage him in the least. He could get Nami back, and that was what he would do. As long as she was alive, he could find her.

Luffy stopped turning around as he felt the presence of the man in the cloak just behind him.

"What do you want?" he asked resentfully without turning around. He wasn't even going to look at the man who clearly wanted him to give up about his nakama. Why else would he show him these horrible things that just weren't true?

"Nothing," said the other man calmly, but his voice had an amused tone that hadn't been there before. "Why do you think I have something to do with this?"

"I want my nakama!" Luffy demanded, clenching his teeth until his jaws started to ache. What wouldn't he give up, just to be able to kick this smug bastard's ass and be sure that he would get back to Going Merry, his hat and Zoro, Nami, Usopp, Sanji, Chopper, Vivi and Carue afterwards?

"I don't have them," came the calm, amused reply. "If you want them so bad, then go and find them. However, it's easy to get lost in the darkness around here."

Luffy didn't reply. That was all he needed to know. So he just had to look carefully? His nakama were somewhere in the darkness around him, and that meant that he could find them.

He didn't turn around to look at the man in the cloak as he ran into the darkness, determined to find his nakama - no matter what.

* * *

Who is this man in the white cloak? Is he really the new Pirate King? Why does he want to show these things to Luffy, anyway? Will Luffy find his nakama and get to kick the cloaked guy's ass? I'm afraid you won't get to know the answer to these questions in the next chapter, but do continue to read this story, because seeing the number of hits rising makes me happy.  
The last chapter only got one review, so it will be easy to reply to that.

**em182** - Yeah, they shot him... No, I shot him... I could just as well have been holding the guns myself.Gomen ne, Zoro-kun...

_(Zoro in the background: Don't **call** me that, bitch!)  
Hey, maybe that would be a neat thing... San-gun-ryu, the three gun style! Nah,I'm just beingstupid.  
(Zoro: What's the difference between that and the things you usually say?)  
e-e; Hush, Zoro-kun, or I'll tell everyone what I saw you hide under the loose plank in the storage room.  
(Zoro: ...)_

Anyway, I know a lot of people who gets depressed in fall, I don't know why. I love fall as well, with the fresh, clear air in the morning, the yellowing and reddening leaves and the rainy nights. Awesome.  
Happy Birthday once again.


	4. The Marksman

My sister officially dislikes me for writing this chapter... Heh, isn't that great:D Anyway, on with the chapter...  
Please overlook any possible words crammed together, I am not the one creating them, and when I try to fix them in QuickEdit, it just adds new ones in different places...

* * *

Darkness, darkness, darkness. Everywhere he looked, he was met by impenetrable darkness. Even if he had known a single thing about how to determine directions, he wouldn't have known if he was running south or north or even up or down. But he could feel that there was something ahead of him, so he kept going forward. Images of his nakama flashed before his eyes as the gnawing feeling inside him began to make itself known again, this time even more painful than before. The images were mirrored in the black air around him and made the throbbing pain in his chest even worse.

Zoro. Nami. Usopp. Sanji. Vivi. Carue. Chopper. They were all there somewhere in the dark, and he would find them, no matter what. That cloaked man was just lying. No one was dead, because that just wasn't true. Okay, so he had seen Zoro die, but where was his body? And why hadn't he been able to stop it from happening? Just like with Nami and the cannon… It was really mysterious, and he just couldn't get a grip of anything, no matter how much he tried.

He was so occupied with doing several things at the same time - thinking of his nakama while trying to figure out why things were so mysterious all of a sudden and of course running - that he didn't even notice when the darkness faded and was replaced with a path in a forest at the crack of dawn.

It wasn't until he - for the second time in a very short while - slammed head-first into something hard that he began to notice the change in the scenery. Luckily, it wasn't a concrete wall this time, but the trunk of a large tree. However, this hardly made the impact between his head and the trunk of that tree any more welcome.

Stumbling back from the tree, Luffy sat down on the ground while rubbing his lightly reddened forehead. Whining to himself, he wondered why so many things just seemed to jump out right in front of him when he was in a hurry and least expected it. Of course, he wasn't hurt, but he didn't really feel like running into a tree when all he really wanted was to find his nakama.

"Stupid tree…" he muttered, kicking the tree as he got up, just to make sure it wouldn't do that again.

He was brushing some dust off his jeans when he heard something that sounded like a war cry coming from far away. He straightened up and looked in the direction of the sound. What could have made a sound like that?

Just as he thought that he should go and check out the mystery noise, he heard another sound coming from the opposite direction, headed straight towards him. It sounded like someone was running in his direction, and when Luffy turned around towards this new noise, he could clearly see a figure running through the mists that were still creeping over the ground in the pale morning light.

"Damn it, damn it,** damn it**!" he heard the person say out loud as he came closer. "How could I be so stupid? I came up with that great plan, and then I choose the wrong slope! I have to stop them before they reach the village!"

Recognizing the voice, Luffy managed to grin and felt so much lighter all of a sudden. He had found one of his nakama!

"Yo, Usopp!" he called out, lifting one hand in greeting. "Have you seen--?"

He was cut off when Usopp didn't slow down and instead ran straight through Luffy as if he wasn't even there. It didn't hurt a bit to have someone run straight through his body, all he felt was a tingly feeling all over him, which soon faded. Luffy blinked and turned around to look after his marksman. That feeling of outmost terror and desperation that had come over him… Had he actually felt what Usopp had been feeling when they collided? He could feel a burning sensation behind his eyelids, but he didn't even blink. The tears that threatened to spill over his cheeks weren't his, and neither was the frustration that caused them. But what could make Usopp feel like that? Luffy knew that he just had to find out.

"Usopp! Wait!" he called out and started running after his marksman.

Damn, he was fast; Luffy couldn't even see him anymore on the winding forest path. But he could feel that Usopp was up ahead of him, and with that showing him the way to go like a beacon in the night, he wouldn't get lost even in the unfamiliar forest.

He had only been running for a short while when he suddenly emerged from the forest and came out on top of a cliff, from which he could see a landing-slope and the large pirate ship that was at anchor there.

The most eye-catching thing about the ship, except for its very size and the large crew that was climbing down its side to the beach below, was the large, black cat-shaped figurehead. Just looking at it made Luffy feel angry. It made him remember the sound of screams and steel scratching against stone, and the thick smell of blood.

"-- and I have a hundred million men behind me, awaiting my signal to attack!"

Luffy walked over to the edge of the cliff and looked down. To his right, at the top of the slope, stood Usopp with his slingshot aimed at the vast amount of pirates who were still emerging from the depths of the ship.

"What a stupid lie," laughed one of the pirates and pointed at Usopp with his sword as he was accompanied by the rest of the crew. "Who does he think he's kidding?"

But in front of the pirates, a tall, weird-looking man in a long, navy blue coat stopped in his tracks, looking completely baffled.

"A-- a hundred million--!" he stammered while looking stupidly at Usopp through a pair of heart-shaped glasses, his mouth gaping. Actually, Luffy couldn't see the glasses from the distance, but it made sense to picture them as heart-shaped.

"Captain, you don't believe him, do you?" asked another pirate. "He's just trying to fool you."

"Shit! They saw through it!" Usopp hissed, panic clearly heard in his voice.

"**What!**" yelled the weird man furiously, sticking his hand into the pocket of his coat. "You tried to fool me, did you? That was a rotten trick! …Now look at this ring…"

He pulled up a strange ring attached to a piece of string from his pocket and held it up in front of him. Then he let it dangle from side to side while he spoke with a slow, steady rhythm.

"On 'one, two, Jango', you will stand aside and let us pass without question. One… Two…"

Luffy leaned forward to see better from where he was standing. Just then, as if someone had put their cold hands over his eyes in a game of 'Guess who?' everything went dark, and he could hear a voice right next to his ear.

"Don't worry, you won't miss a thing. We just don't want you to be hypnotized as well, now do we?"

"_Jango!_"

The darkness that had fallen over Luffy's eyes faded and he blinked in the light of dawn before he turned back towards the pirates below. At the top of the slope, Usopp had dropped his slingshot onto the ground and was moving away as if to make way for the pirates. He didn't seem to be aware of what he was doing, but at the same time, no one seemed to be forcing him to do it either.

A few annoyed sighs and groans made Luffy turn his head in the other direction. The pirates had turned towards the weird man in the blue coat, who was now mimicking Usopp's actions.

"The captain hypnotized himself again…" muttered a few of the pirates.

"Captain, will you stop letting yourself pass? We have to hurry, remember?" said one of the pirates who stood right next to the so-called captain.

Shaking his head in annoyance, Luffy turned his eyes back to his marksman, who was still standing at the top of the slope, now with his arm held out to the side, as if to let someone pass without arguing.

_What the hell are you doing, Usopp!_ Luffy thought angrily, his nails digging into the palms of his hands when he clenched his fists.

"Usopp!" he called out, not caring if anyone heard him. "Do you hear me? _Stop that_,damn it"

He could hear the man in the white cloak laughing behind him, but didn't turn around. Below him, the pirates had begun walking up the slope, and Usopp still wouldn't respond.

"You're wasting your time," said the man in the cloak amusedly. Luffy could swear that the stranger's voice sounded more and more cheerful each time he heard it. "Don't you see that your weak, pathetic excuse for a gunner can't even protect his own village, let alone himself, without you being here to save the day?"

"He's stronger than _you_," Luffy hissed, still staring at Usopp and was at the same time subconsciously trying to mentally persuade him to stop fooling around. "He wouldn't be my nakama if he wasn't strong."

"Is that so?" The other man's voice was hearty, but at the same time, it reminded Luffy of a snake slithering around its prey, aiming to strike. He decided to ignore the smug bastard as much as he could. He had no time to waste on that man, anyway.

Suddenly, he heard a voice above the roar from the pirates.

"_Must let them pass… no, what the heck is wrong with me… but I must-- The pirates will kill everyone - Kaya, the kids, every last one - they must pass… no, I must stop them… but first I have to let them go…"_

"No!" Luffy called out before he could stop himself. "Don't do it Usopp! If you let them go, I'll--!"

The cloaked man laughed again.

"Why don't you just try to stop them yourself? Clearly, he's not going to do anything," he said amusedly.

"No, he can do it," Luffy said in a whisper, his eyes narrowed to thin slits as he still stared at his gunner. "He can fight without me. You'll see. It's not over yet."

"Where do you get the energy to be so confident?" the other sighed, but Luffy ignored him.

Just then, one of the pirates accidentally ran into Usopp, pushing him to the side and onto the ground. Luffy watched silently as his marksman stirred and sat up while shaking his head. Usopp looked around confusedly until he spotted the pirates passing him by on their way towards the village.

"Wait!" he cried out, throwing himself at the nearest pirate. "You're not going to hurt anyone, I won't allow it!"

The pirate, whose leg Usopp had attached himself to, gave up an annoyed grunt and aimed a hard kick at Usopp's ribs with his free foot.

"Let go of me, you little punk!" he growled and kicked Usopp again. "What's wrong with you? You wanna die so badly?"

Usopp coughed in pain, but didn't let go of the pirate.

"No," he said breathlessly. "I don't. But you're not going to destroy my village as long as I'm alive!"

Another hard kick, this time right in the face, made Usopp finally let go of the pirate's leg. He rolled over to the side, his left arm - which was already covered in dried blood from what appeared to be a pretty recent injury - wrapped around his chest. Groaning, he reached up to wipe his bleeding nose before placing his hands firmly against the ground.

"You're not done with me yet!" he yelled, slowly getting up from the ground. Tears were now streaming from his eyes, and Luffy felt his heart twist painfully around itself. He wanted to run down and help, but just like he could feel the cloaked man's gaze locked on the back of his head, he found that he couldn't move a muscle.

"Get back here!" Usopp continued to yell, stumbling a little as he took a step forward with his slingshot now back in his hand. "I said that you're not done with me yet! I'll show you what happens if you ignore the great Captain Usopp-sama!"

He lifted his slingshot and pulled up something from his pocket in one fluid movement.

"Surekill!" he cried out, desperation and fear heard in each syllable. "Lead Sta--!"

The explosion-like sound of a gunshot rang out over the ocean, like the final tone of a battle hymn, and Usopp was cut off as his head was thrown violently to the side, the spatter of blood hitting the ground long before his body even lost its balance. He fell to the ground without a sound, his slingshot landing with a dull clatter in the dust in front of him. A pool of his own blood started to form around him as the pirates spat at him and continued up the slope as if nothing had happened.

Before the echo of the gunshot had faded into the distance (perhaps headed to the Grand Line, to let the heart of a certain sharpshooter know the truth of his son's fate), Luffy dashed forward, a roar of fury and despair escaping his throat. He wasn't going to let another of his nakama die in front of his eyes, just because of that mysterious guy in the cloak!

"**Usopp!"**

He ran through the last pirates who were climbing the slope, while unfamiliar, horrible thoughts and feelings that didn't belong to him were flooding his brain. Thoughts of murder, of pointless violence and fear of a shadow in black moving quicker than the eye could see, everything jumbled up in one large buzzing in Luffy's head as he stopped next to his fallen nakama.

Kneeling by his marksman, Luffy grit his teeth. He didn't know exactly how to check if someone was dead or not, but he was pretty sure that being alive involved breathing, which was something Usopp currently… wasn't doing. Luffy's eyes darted from side to side, not sure where he should turn to look.

"Come on, Usopp," he said, his fingers clawing at the frayed ends of his denim shorts. "Stop fooling around. It's not funny, Zoro did it too, and I don't think it's funny at all."

He tried to grab Usopp by the shoulders and shake him, but his hands sank right through the boy's body. Pulling back his hands, he looked down at his marksman with a horrified look on his face. An icy cold feeling raced through him and buried itself in his stomach as he realized that where he previously would have been able to feel what Usopp was feeling, he didn't feel anything at all.

"Ironic, isn't it?" said the cheerful voice Luffy now was beginning to hate with a passion. "Taken down by a lead bullet, just like that. But I suppose that's the way any gunner is destined to go, sooner or later."

At first, Luffy didn't reply. He was looking down at Usopp, still refusing to take in the image of his marksman lying there on the ground with his bloodstained face frozen in an expression of outmost surprise, his open eyes glazed and soulless, and the last of his tears still trickling down his cheeks. But when the information finally forced the walls he had put up around his mind, he rose to his feet and turned to face the man in the cloak.

"Take that back," he demanded. "Take everything back."

"Take what back? I'm just speaking my mind here."

Luffy shook his head, a vein throbbing in his temple. It was a long time since he had felt this angry, at least as far as he could remember. Usopp and Zoro were dead, Nami had disappeared, and Luffy still didn't know where the rest of his nakama were.

"No, you're going to take everything you've done to my nakama back!" he growled. "You did this, and I know it! You did this, and you did all of those things to Zoro and Nami, too, so take it back!"

"I haven't done a thing, as you very well have seen with your own eyes," said the other man coldly, not a single trace of his previous cheerfulness remaining in his voice. "I'm just here to show you the truth, so deal with it."

"The truth?" Luffy repeated, his voice still carrying an edge of rage. But the man in the cloak simply looked at him from within the shadows of his hood, and before he could reach out for Usopp's body, darkness once again blinded Luffy completely.

* * *

_He actually died in this chapter... Not like in "The Liars" where he simply refused to die. But then again, there was really no other outcome in this situation. There's no way Kuro would have let Usopp live, even if the pirates hadn't killed him there on the beach... Now, I'm facing some problems with the next chapter. We'll see what happens in that when I finally get around to write it._

_**em182** - Yeah, the guy in the white cloak sure seems like he's up to no good. I really should have written more about the villagers in Cocoyashi, but then I figured that Luffy really wouldn't relate to them that much, and so it wouldn't add that much to his agony. You're very welcome, and I hope you had a great birthday._

_**Eiram-Chaosgodess** - Yeah, but torturing Luffy is fun! I've been drawing so many happy pictures with him, that I felt the need to really torment him for a while... Good thing he has you to cheer him up a bit, ne?_

_**TreeStar **- Yeah, Zoro's dead and Usopp as well... as far as we know, anyway, that guy in the cloak seems to have something up his sleeve, doesn't he? -shifty eyes-  
__Thanks for recommending my story to your friends, the more readers, the more happiness for Kame :D I have to disagree with you on one point about Nami, though. I don't think she was committing suicide before she finallyasked Luffy to help her. I believe that she was just so angry with Arlong and what he had done, and in such emotional pain, that she just wanted to destroy anything that had to do with Arlong - and the closest thing to her was her tattoo, which she never wantedfrom the start. And the only reason to why she did that to begin with was because Arlong stole themoney she was going to use to buy the island from him. Luffy and the others made it possible for Nami to come over a lot of treasure during the short period they were sailing together, and if she hadn't met them, she would still have quitea lotof money to collect. Because of that, Arlong wouldn't have the reason to steal her money just yet, and Nami and the villagers would continue to fight for their own survival._

_**Digitaldreamer** - -gets band-aid for your heart- Just in case it breaks again...  
I'm glad you found the time to read my chapters, both the ones in 'The seventh guest' and in this one. I was reading the first volumes of the manga, and I began thinking of what would have happened if Luffy never met his nakama. At first, I simply assumed that they would have all died, but then I started thinking harder about it, and came to the conclusion that not everyone would die. Of course, there could have been the situation where Buggy actually managed to kill Nami because she stole the map of the Grand Line from him, but I thought that Luffy would be able to remember Arlong better because of what he put Nami through, so I made her survive._

_I'm actually glad that so many seem to dislike theguyin the cloak. I kind of like him myself, just because he seems to enjoy tormenting others like he is tormenting Luffy. It would be hard to write about him if I didn't like him, I guess... Anyway, we'll see when the next chapter comes up, I'm having problems figuring out what's going to happen next..._


	5. The truth

Alright... I was going to write one chapter for each of the Straw Hats (including Vivi and Carue), but I can't seem to be able towrite anything decent about Vivi... I've already tried twice, but the words just wouldn't flow in the right way... Same thing for Chopper. Therefore, I present to you this utterly lame chapter... I don't like it, but it's the best of everything I've been writing this week. I'll do better with the next chapters, I promise. I really apologize if it's really bad.

* * *

"Where are you!" Luffy roared, his hands clawing through the thick darkness that surrounded him. "Damn you! Give me back my nakama or I'll kick your ass back to the Mystery Mountain!"

He couldn't even see his hands if he held up them in front of him, but he couldn't care less about such a petty detail. Not when that stranger was letting his nakama die while laughing at the whole thing.

"I_ know_ that you're here!" he shouted into the darkness, not even aware of the fact that his voice didn't cast an echo anymore. "I know that you're here, so _show yourself!_"

He was once again holding one of his hands tightly clutched around the red cloth of his vest over his chest, where a heavy, painful, empty feeling had appeared. It was worse than the pain he had felt when he had seen Zoro die, and far heavier than anything he had ever carried before. Not even the knowledge that Shanks had lost his arm for him had felt as bad as this.

"_I'm just here to show you the truth, so deal with it."_

"What truth!" Luffy shouted at the voice that seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. He let his voice drop to a whisper, feeling his anger rushing through him in white-hot waves. "You're just showing me lies…"

He clenched his teeth so hard that he could feel his pulse in his jaw. His body was trembling with rage, and he longed for the man in the cloak to appear so that he could kick his ass to the moon. No, even farther than that. The Moon Hare hadn't done anything to deserve having such a person on his moon.

"_OOI!_" he cried out, all his anger rushing even faster through his veins. "**_OOI!_** I know you're there! Oi! Answer me! Oiii!"

"What is it?"

Luffy flinched as the cold, hard voice appeared from the darkness behind him. He turned around, only to stare straight into the folds of thick white cloth wrapped around a figure that was far too familiar. For a moment, Luffy couldn't do anything but glare at the man in front of him. He wasn't sure if his glare pierced through the shadows of the hood, but he sure hoped that they did. In some way, he would let this sadist know just exactly who he was dealing with.

If only his body would obey… As soon as this man appeared, it was like he completely lost the control over himself. He was trembling from the effort it took to force the hand that wasn't clutched by his aching chest to move and bring it up to grab hold of the white cloak in front of him. What ever the man was doing to him to make him feel like this, he had to be stronger. What kind of King would he be if he wasn't strong enough to get his nakama back?

"Give… them… back…" he forced his lips and tongue to move as he pulled himself closer to the other man. Despite all his efforts, the man in front of him only laughed in that hollow, supposedly cheerful way.

"You're amazingly slow, do you know that?" he said calmly, and Luffy could feel their eyes meet. "I keep telling you that I don't have anything to do with this--"

"**No more lies!"** Luffy roared, his eyes blazing furiously. "You killed Zoro, you killed Usopp, and you hurt Nami! What have you done to the others? Where are Sanji, Chopper, Vivi and Ca--?"

"I killed **no one**!" the cloaked man roared in return, for the first time showing some real emotions. He tore free from Luffy's tight grip and backed away from him. "I had nothing to do with their deaths, and I don't need anyone to blame me for that!"

"You **lie**!" Luffy shouted, hardly fazed by the statement the other man had made. "You're a liar, and I know it! Now give them back!"

There was no reply. Luffy felt his body trembling with rage that was rising to the point where he no longer could hold it back. Without warning, he lashed out at the other man, pulling back one arm to perform his oldest move.

"Gomu Gomu no…"

He hadn't even finished calling out the name of his attack before it was blocked. The man in the cloak moved faster than he could see, and all of a sudden, he felt a tug in his arm and a tingling feeling in his stomach as he was pulled forward through the air. He was slammed against the black floor so hard that he got the wind knocked out of him. Gasping for air like a stranded fish, he barely registered the weight that was pressing him down against the floor. How could he have been defeated that easily? No one should have been able to see that move coming, even with the forewarning name of the attack.

"**I can't!**" growled the man in the cloak, his shadowed face only centimeters from Luffy's own. Deep inside the shadows, Luffy thought he could see his own reflection in a pair of eyes, but he wasn't sure. The darkness was far too deep for him to be certain.

"You just don't get it, do you? I don't lie. I never lie. I'm just here to show you the truth, and that's what I've been doing." The voice was low and hissing, like the sound of an enraged snake. Luffy didn't know what to say, and he couldn't move because of the weight the other man was putting over him. At least he thought that was why he couldn't move.

"Do you think I enjoy this?" the cloaked man continued and placed his hand over Luffy's chest, his bitten-down nails scratching his skin. "Do you think I _want_ to see my nakama die over and over again? That I even for one moment would enjoy watching their last moments over and over again? You think this is bad, but try watching all of this over and over again until the truth finally breaks whatever hope and trust you have left. Then you will know what real pain is."

Luffy didn't reply. He wasn't sure how to understand all this. This guy was talking about his nakama as if he knew them, but that couldn't be right. Hadn't he said that his nakama were all dead?

"Now," the other man continued, a little calmer than before, but without letting Luffy get up from the floor. "Where do we go next?"

"What are you talking about?" Luffy managed to stay calm while he spoke, hoping for the other to let his guard down.

"We're not done yet. It's my job to show you the rest of your nakama and their fate without you, so where do we go next? Would you rather find out how many explosions is needed to take the life of a princess, or whether the King of Drum Island prefers venison medium or rare?"

Luffy's eyes widened beyond what normally would be possible, even for a rubber man. This, he had no problem understanding.

"Don't you **touch them**!" he cried, trying to twist out of the tight grip the other man was holding him in. "I told you, I don't want to see any more lies!"

"Fine. I'll just tell you then,"

Luffy felt how the other man gripped his wrists and held them together while pressing him against the floor, and he ended up unable to move a muscle. The other man continued, in an almost completely emotionless voice:

"It takes two explosive punches and a weight of 800 kilos to finish off a Spot-billed duck from Alabasta, and another five punches to take care of the same kingdom's little princess. _I'm not done yet, so stop squirming!_ The Baroque Works dumped their bodies in the ocean, where no one will ever find them again.

"And the King of Drum wasn't pleased to find his castle occupied by a witch and her pet. Together with his two underlings, it took him only five minutes to seize the control over the castle again. Of course, your little doctor fought bravely to protect his mentor, but he was no match for the King's powers. Nasty way to go, really, being eaten alive. Wouldn't you agree?"

Luffy was paralyzed. Images were flooding his mind and flashing before his mind's eye faster than he could handle. Images of Vivi, Carue and Chopper, all in situations he knew weren't true. They couldn't be true, because he had been there. He had made sure that they were safe, because that was what nakama did. That was what he as a captain had to do, just because he was the captain.

"NO!" he cried out. "No, you're lying! I was there, and those things you said aren't true! Vivi isn't dead, and neither is Chopper! I saw them before I went to bed, Vivi is keeping watch and Chopper is sleeping--"

The man in the cloak started laughing and got up from the floor, letting go of Luffy's arms and setting him free.

"You still haven't got it, have you? So you don't even know why you're being put through this? You poor idiot…"

"How did your nakama die?" Luffy asked, slowly sitting up on the floor while rubbing his wrists lightly. "You said that they died, so what happened?"

There was a change in the other man's posture. His back was straightened in an unnatural way, and Luffy could feel strange emotions coming from him. Strong emotions of a kind he never had felt before. Guilt, sorrow and emptiness all mixed up together with a joy that Luffy couldn't describe as anything other than crazy.

"You said you're telling me the truth," Luffy said coldly. "So tell me another truth. How did they die?"

"I couldn't save them…" The reply was only a whisper, like the sound of a breeze blowing through Nami's tangerine trees. "Before it happened, I had a ship, and I had nakama. But it might just have been a dream… It feels like it was all a dream, because it happened such a long time ago… I don't remember what happened, just the blood… but maybe that also was a dream…"

He held out his arms in front of him, outside the cloak, as if he just realized that he had them. Luffy pulled back subconsciously by the sight of the thin, sinewy, scarred arms. Those deep, uneven scars sent cold chills down his spine, and he really didn't like them. The man in the cloak seemed to notice his discomfort, because he took a step closer to Luffy, still with his arms held out in front of him.

"It hurt so much. Being alone… It hurt much more than you can ever imagine. I wanted it to go away, but it kept coming back. I heal too fast, you know…"

Shivering from the very sound of the other's voice, Luffy stood up and walked up to the man in the cloak. He stared into the shadows under the hood for a moment before he said what had been gnawing at his brain ever since he had been released from the other man's grip.

"What about my cook? Where is Sanji?"

* * *

_I think I'm losing him now... The cloaked one... I didn't intend for him to show that side just yet, but now he did... Oh well..._

_**em182** - Ha ha, I know that look. I get it when I read fanfiction as well... I didn't know there could be too much drinking on your 18th birthday... Heh, I hope you're not disappointed over this chapter's lameness..._

_**Phoenix Flare** - Well, I think we'll find out who he is very soon... No Sanji in this chapter, unfortunately, but he'll show up in the next one, I think._

_**Digitaldreamer** - Well, that's a truth, but it's not the one I'm going for. It's true though, a lot of people would be seriously screwed if Luffy hadn't been there... ): Your poor heart... -hands roll of softer duct tape- The normal one chafes..._


	6. The Whole Truth

While I've been struggling with my Social Studies-tests and trying to pound information into my brain, I seem to have misplaced the idea that inspired me to write this fic... That might not excuse the strange turn this story has taken, but it's the only explanation I have to give...  
Anyway, this fic is soon to be finished. Please bear with me until then, and try to ignore any words crammed together if you see any, they have been caused by the edit-tool, and new ones appear every time I try to fix them.

* * *

"Sanji. Tell me… where he is." Luffy's voice nearly faltered, but he forced himself to keep it steady. 

Luffy swayed where he was standing, and he had to struggle to keep his eyes focused on those faint reflections beneath the shadows of the stranger's hood he was convinced were the man's eyes. He was starting to feel drained of his strength in that way only seawater could drain the life out of someone with the power of a Devil's fruit. But there was no water there, only compact darkness. So it had to be this white-clad man who was the cause of his sudden powerlessness.

The white-clad man seemed to regain control over himself by the mentioning of Sanji's name. He pulled back from Luffy, who could feel all those strong emotions emanating from the man fade into nothing again.

"He's over there," the man said, nodding lightly towards something behind Luffy. Now his voice had gone back to the hollow but yet oddly cheerful tone. "If you want to see him that bad, I'm not going to stop you."

Luffy reluctantly turned his head in the direction the other man pointed out for him. As soon as his eyes lost contact with the white, eerily glowing shape of the other man's cape, he was blinded by bright sunlight that seemed at first to be coming from nowhere.

Soon, his eyes adjusted to the new source of light, and he could see that he was standing on the roof of a boat which looked like a very strange fish. Looking down towards the front gate of the ship, he could see that the name _Baratie_ was written on the side of the fish-boat in large letters (even if he saw the letters upside-down), and Luffy knew exactly where he was. This was the place he had found Sanji before they left to get Nami from Arlong, and the place where he had been forced to work for a whole week.

The sound of a gunshot pierced the silence that had been pressing against Luffy's ears. He hadn't even noticed the lack of sound around him until the silence was broken. Not even the waves seemed to make any sound as they slapped against the side of the restaurant.

Luffy looked up to see where the gunshot could have come from. He was hardly surprised to find an enormous battleship lie for anchor just in front of the restaurant he was standing on. Neither was he surprised to find that the ship in question was almost completely destroyed. How could it still be floating with those deep gashes in the hull, Luffy asked himself without bothering to think of an answer. There was something about that ship that sent chills down his spine, but he couldn't think of any reason for that to happen.

There was a loud (and yet a bit hesitating) cheering that steadily grew stronger, and a moment later, Luffy could see people running across the deck of the battleship towards the railing closest to the fish-shaped restaurant. In a matter of seconds, the pirates began boarding the fish-boat, armed with swords and guns. Luffy looked down towards the front gate, feeling as if he was waiting for something to happen.

Then, suddenly, he felt a gust of wind ruffling his hair and looked up. Just as he laid eyes on the battleship, it was as if a small, barely visible whirlwind rushed straight over the deck of it, and down along the hull towards the water, where it disappeared in a puff of sawdust. The next moment, the wood broke apart in the wake of the whirlwind, and the ship was parted in two sections that bobbed on the water for a moment, much like head-less fishes would still flap their tails all the way to the frying pan. Another roar was heard, but this time, it was a cry of pure fear as the two sections of the ship split up in smaller parts and began sinking rapidly.

A similar cry, but much shorter and more of surprise than fear, rose from the floor below Luffy. Placing his hands over his knees, Luffy peered down over the edge of the roof at the men dressed in white who had gathered by the front gate to dispose of the pirates who had dared to enter the restaurant. The cooks of the restaurant seemed to be just as bewildered as the pirates who now were clinging to the still floating pieces of their once grand battleship.

"Look!"

"It's him!"

"Do-- _cough_-- Don Krieg! It's him!"

"It's the man who sank our fleet!"

Luffy turned his eyes away from the cooks, a bit disappointed that he hadn't seen Sanji anywhere, and looked up. The pirates in the water below were all yelling at the same time, making it nearly impossible to make out a single word. But in the veils of smoke and dust that still were drifting along the surface of the water, Luffy could make out the silhouette of a small vessel slowly making its way towards the center of the action.

"It's him…"

Luffy heard the words pass over his lips, but he still wasn't sure that he had been the one who said them. He was certain that he knew who was traveling in that small craft, but no matter how hard he tried to remember, the person's name and face wouldn't rise to the surface of his mind. Then, all of a sudden, a flash light of the sun was reflected off something metallic in the midst of a circle of green flames, and the memories came flooding back to Luffy.

A man with eyes as sharp as the long black blade he carried on his back. A challenge made for one man to determine the other's fate. The cold sound of a tiny knife parrying a whirling inferno of three swords, blending with the terrified cries of all the spectators as they too realized what kind of fight they really were watching. Luffy's heart hammering in his chest as he gradually began to realize what the outcome of the battle would be. The final cut that brought the battle to an end, and the barriers of Luffy's mind finally breaking from the flood of withheld fury dammed up inside him by what he thought was the loss of his swordsman.

"Hawk-Eye…" Luffy muttered. "Hawk-Eyes Mihawk…"

About at the same time the smoke parted to reveal Juraquille Mihawk sitting calmly in his small craft, another man appeared on one of the larger pieces of what was left of the battleship. He was wearing a shiny gold-colored armor and a long, heavy-looking cape tossed over his shoulders. His men were still crying out their fear over the destruction of the enormous ship and the sudden appearance of the world's strongest swordsman, but the captain of the pirate clan didn't seem to have been fazed in the least. In fact, Don Krieg was laughing dryly as he leaned back against what remained of the shattered railing behind him.

"So, Hawk-Eyes," he said slowly, eyeing the well-known swordsmaster with mild interest. "Why have you followed us all the way here from the depths of the Grand Line?"

Mihawk's shoulders twitched in what looked like a very nonchalant shrug, and he tilted his head ever so lightly to the side as he fixated his gaze upon Krieg.

"I'm just passing some time," he said calmly, leaning back in his seat. The large black-bladed sword he carried on his back scraped lightly against the bottom of the boat as he moved.

"So you haven't come for my head then?" Krieg continued, still in the same mildly interested fashion. "The head of the man known as the King of East Blue?"

Mihawk shrugged once again, still not letting his piercing eyes leave the pirate in front of him. Luffy found himself nearly hypnotized by those eyes, and had to force himself to blink every once in a while. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to be seeing here. The mysterious man in the cloak had told him that Sanji was here, but Luffy hadn't seen even a glimpse of his cook anywhere yet.

"You speak your title with pride, I hear," Mihawk said, still not moving from his seat. "But your title means nothing in the world, even if you are feared in this ocean. Of all the seas of the world, this East Blue is the weakest, and no pirate from this sea will ever be known as a king.

"But now that you mention it…" Mihawk's lips curved upwards as he rose from his seat. "I have been a bit bored lately. Perhaps you will prove to be of some amusement to me?"

During the following moments, everything happened very fast. At the same time Mihawk placed one foot on the platform, pistols appeared from under Krieg's armor. Eight rounds of bullets were fired, but a swift flick of what appeared to be the swordsmaster's bare hand deflected them all and sent them whistling into the ocean.

The next moment, Krieg stumbled back, an expression of outmost shock on his lined face. His men gave up an equally shocked cry once their armor-clad captain sank down to his knees, one hand clasped around his own throat.

Luffy didn't bother to focus on Krieg, even as dark, sticky blood began trickling between the pirate's fingers. He didn't hear the terrified cries of the pirates down in the water or the subtle cheers of the cooks aboard the restaurant, and he didn't register the white-dressed man who pushed his way through the crowd outside the restaurant below Luffy.

No, his eyes were locked on the little flash of light cast off a tiny blade just as it was carefully slid into its sheath, concealing it within a seemingly harmless cross. The world's strongest swordsman cast one glance at the pirates, out of which only the one dressed in white dared to approach their seriously injured captain, and turned around to step down into his boat again.

"Well, that was anti-climactic… So that's him, huh? The greatest swordsman in the world."

Luffy squatted next to the edge of the roof and looked down towards the deck below, where a tall man dressed in black had appeared in the middle of the crowd of cooks by the lower railing. From his high lookout-spot, Luffy couldn't see his face behind the curtains of blond hair, but he could hear the calm, almost bored tone in his cook's voice, and it was a completely different voice than the voice he was used to hear.

Another voice was heard, and this time, it was the voice of an old man that was mixed with the tapping of what appeared to be a wooden leg against the floor.

"It's him, alright. It's rare to see one of the Shichibukai out here in East Blue. They usually don't leave the Grand Line. Now don't stand there gawking all day, you all have work to do. Tell the boys down in the machinery to move us out of here."

The tapping sound of the wooden leg moved inside the restaurant again, and Luffy watched as the cooks slowly began moving back into the boat again. Even Sanji turned away from the scene outside the boat, and flicked the still lit rest of a cigarette over the railing. He cast one last glance at Mihawk's small boat, which was slowly moving away from the shattered battleship and frowned.

"Che. So you face people like him in there… The Grand Line…"

Sanji stayed by the railing for a moment, not taking his eyes off the swordsmaster's boat. A soft scraping sound let Luffy know that the man behind him was moving, and he turned his head so that he could see the billowing white cloak in the corner of his eye. He didn't want any surprises.

"How great do you think the odds are that your cook ever gets to see the Grand Line?" he heard the man ask. When he didn't reply, the man continued:"When that oldman dies, so will all his ambitions in life. He'll stay on this boat for the rest of his life, that's my guess. He's too damn caught in his own guilt to see that he's working off a debt that can only be paid by following his dreams."

Luffy wasn't listening.While Sanji shrugged stiffly and slid his hands into his pockets before walking back into the resturant, Luffy sat down on top of the roof and let his legs dangle over the side. He didn't know what was going on, but even if everything seemed to be fine here, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.

"_Hey, have you ever heard about All Blue?"_

"_No, what's that?"_

"_What? You never heard of it?"_

Luffy shook his head as the sound of Sanji's excited voice appeared in his mind, closely followed by his own. He could remember sitting on the railing outside this very restaurant, scratching at the itchy band-aids that were stuck to his arms and legs while listening to Sanji's story of an amazing ocean that was supposed to be somewhere out there in the Grand Line. That all seemed so distant now, almost as if it only had been a dream caused by his insatiable hunger.

"I think you're starting to get the picture now."

Luffy looked up but didn't turn around. He wasn't even surprised to see something white fluttering in the light breeze in the corner of his eye.

"Getting the picture?" Luffy curled up where he sat and reached down to adjust the straps of his sandals. He wished that he knew where his hat was, because he was starting to get worried about it.

"What have I been showing you so far?" asked the man in the white cloak with patience in his voice, as if he was perfectly used to Luffy's behavior.

"Lies." Luffy replied calmly, waving one foot in the air to check if his sandal was tied tightly enough. "I keep telling you that I don't buy any of this. Zoro and Usopp and Vivi and Chopper aren't dead. I know that. And Nami is not back with that damn fish-guy."

"And what about this scene you just saw?"

Luffy frowned and leaned back, supporting himself with his hands against the roof. He sat like that for a moment, going over what he just had seen in his mind.

"Zoro fought Mihawk," he said simply. "And I fought the guy with the armor… You didn't show me that, so this is just another lie."

He fell silent for a moment, watching the pirates now flocking around their fallen captain on the wooden remains of the once proud battleship that was slowly shrinking towards the horizon as the restaurant began moving away from it. His mind was beginning to wrap itself around what he had seen. Then, the nightmare from before came back to him, and he could once again hear the voices of his nakama in his head.

"_I don't want to be your nakama."_

"_No, Luffy-san. Go away."_

"_Quaaaaaa…"_

"_Didn't you hear what they said? Go away."_

"_Like I said, we were just working together temporarily. Don't take it personal."_

"_No. No more lies, no more stories. No more adventures, Luffy."_

"_I'm not a pirate. I'm just a reindeer…"_

"_I don't want to follow a moron like you anymore. I'll find All Blue on my own."_

"_Get away from me. I wish I never met you."_

"We never met…" Luffy muttered, straightening up a bit as he began clapping the soles of his feet together. "That's what this dream is about, isn't it?"

"Hmm…?" said the man in the cloak, who was watching him intently. "Try again, you're getting closer."

Luffy shook his head and curled up where he sat. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't grasp all of this. He wished that Nami or Vivi would be there so that they could explain stuff to him, or that Usopp or Chopper were there to be confused together with him. Or that Sanji would be there to kick him in the head for stealing that food earlier, or that Zoro would be there to tell him that this was all just a bad dream that could be ignored…

"They're not here with you, are they?" The voice that whispered in his ear sent uncomfortable chills down Luffy's spine. "That's because you really never met them. All you remember about them and your journey never happened."

"Wh-why?" Luffy felt his lips and tongue move to produce the word, but he wasn't really aware that he was speaking.

"You're dreaming, Luffy," came the soft reply. "You see, the truth is that you've been dreaming for a long time, and now… it's time for you to wake up, Pirate King."

All of Luffy's senses suddenly screamed at him to watch out, but he didn't get the time to react before he felt two bony hands against his back as he was pushed off the roof of the restaurant. Acting purely on instinct, he reached out his hand and grabbed hold of the first thing he spotted, namely the edge of the white cloak. But this did not stop his fall. Instead, as he pulled at the white cloth, it didn't stick to anything, but was dragged along with him.

Turning his eyes up towards the other man who was still standing on top of the restaurant, Luffy tried to focus his gaze on his newly revealed face as he fell towards the water as if in slow-motion. A pointed face with skin of a sicklydark shade that seemed to be the only part of his body that wasn't covered in rough, badly healed scars; deep set, almond-shaped eyes that glittered under the wild untidy hair that danced over his face in the faint breeze, and a grin so wide that it threatened to crack his face in two.

His first thought was: _Shanks…_ But no, it wasn't Shanks. Shanks didn't have black hair. Luffy blinked twice, the image of the man's face clearing up a little. _Ace?_ No, that wasn't right either. Why would his brother do something like this?

Then he saw it. The thin white line right under the man's left eye that stood out against the darkened skin almost like the crescent moon at night. A scar he knew too well after seeing it every time he looked in a mirror. A scar he had caused himself by stabbing himself in the face ten yearsearlier.

For a split second, he thought that hesaw a change inthe face ofthat other Luffy;an image ofan eyeless skull surrounded by blackmist flickering over what could have been a surrealreflection of himself.Now he knew that this had to be a dream… Or even worse…

---

One time, when Luffy hadn't turned seven yet, Shanks had let him and Ace stay aboard the pirate ship for one night. They had been having a lot of fun with the pirates, but in the middle of the night, Luffy had awakened from a bad dream. Still shaking and cold sweat glazing his neck, he had finally convinced himself to wake Shanks and thus taking the risk of being teased for being a kid as usual.

But Shanks hadn't teased Luffy. Instead, he had told him that nightmares are like bullies. They come when you're weak or tired, like when you have a fever or when you've partied all night, and they almost always bring friends. But, he said, there were tricks that could overpower the nightmares and make _them_ scared of _you_.

First, you had to convince yourself that it was only a dream, because that would make the nightmare lose its power. Second, you should try to defeat the monster or whatever it was you dreamed of in the dream, and so turn the bad dream into a good dream.

However, Shanks had warned Luffy with a serious voice as he tucked him back into the large hammock next to his brother, if the nightmare gained power instead of losing it, there was one way to end the dream immediately before something bad happened, and that was to pinch yourself really, really hard and wake yourself up. Because if you lost control of the nightmare and the monster really caught you and killed you, you could die for real in your sleep. But that wasn't going to happen, Shanks had assured him with a smile, because if Luffy was going to be a pirate, he had to be able to fight off nightmare-monsters too.

Luffy had promised Shanks that he wouldn't let the nightmare-monsters win, and after a few minutes, he had been sound asleep again.

---

This had to be a bad dream. It just had to...And Luffy knew that he had lost control over it a long time ago. In what felt like an eternity, he managed to move his hand up to his lower arm, and pinched himself as hard as he could, just as his back made contact with the cold water.

The sting of pain was dull and distant, but as soon as the information reached his brain, he felt a jerk somewhere along his spine and everything went completely black.

* * *

_Okay, it's 1:40 am and I have a test in Religions tomor... later today...  
I hope this chapter didn't disappoint anyone who was hoping to see Sanji-kun die as well. Mihawk did state that he intended to take Krieg's head, but in the manga, he returned home after fighting Zoro and let Krieg off the hook... Anyway, good night everyone..._

_**Digitaldreamer** - Aw... then we'll have to try the old super glue... But I think we'll wait with that until the last chapter, ne? I don't think this chapter cleared up anything about the guy in the cloak, actually. I didn't want to write too much about him, as I feared that it would disrupt the flow of the chapter. Of course, I could be wrong... _

_**em182 **- But Chopper is so edible... Besides, Wapol would have eaten him if Luffy and Sanji hadn't used that combo attack on the king...  
Ouch, falling over a table? x-x; Maybe there's a limit after all. I don't drink that much myself. I prefer to watch others being drunk instead._

_**Phoenix Flare** - Yeah, I kind of lost him there for a moment. But I wanted to show that he's not just a cold bystander who enjoys killing off other people's nakama..._

_**Shi Rurouni of the Aphrodesiac** - Phew, I had to copy your pen name to be able to write it properly n-n; I'm not sure if it's really an older Luffy, or something else... We'll see as the story ends, ne?_


	7. And Nothing but the Truth

I wrote this while I was actually supposed to be sleeping. I got a total of four hours of sleep -on a schoolnight... or schoolmorning, whatever... I didn't function well on Monday. XD  
Anyway, sorry for the short chapter, but I didn't want to makeitget too long and boring. In all,this chapter was fun to write. Ke ke ke...

* * *

He wasn't sure if it was the pinch in the arm or the boat's violent rocking that woke him up. All he knew was that the sun had just begun rising above the horizon and that there was a tingling feeling in the back of his head as the bad dream pulled back to some dark corner of his mind where it would wait for the next time he fell asleep. There was also the light throb in his arm where he had pinched himself in his sleep, and a strange rushing sound that he wasn't sure where it came from.

Monkey D. Luffy rubbed his lower arm as he looked around with a glazed, sleepy expression in his eyes. For a moment, he wasn't sure where he was, but after a moment or two, his brain accepted the information his eyes sent him and allowed him to realize that he was in a small fishing-boat somewhere in the middle of the ocean with nothing else on board but a large barrel that should have contained lots of fresh water. But he already knew that it was empty, even before he reached out and knocked on its side to hear the same echo as the night before.

… Wait. The night before? Luffy blinked and mentally poked his still sleeping brain in an attempt to get a grasp of things. Right, he had drunk the last of the water before he decided to go to sleep, that was clear, but…

Hadn't he pinched himself to wake up from the bad dream? And if he had woken up, shouldn't he be back in the galley of Going Merry?

_You've been dreaming for a long time…_

Luffy's eyes were drawn to the large barrel of water as a small cascade of water sprayed over the low edge of the boat. There, written with a black marker on the side of the barrel, were the words '_Have a safe voyage, and don't forget us. Makino'_. Luffy reached out and traced the neat, loopy signature with his fingertip while his stomach suddenly had decided to freeze up to a solid lump of ice inside him. He could feel the slow, painful beat of his heart inside his chest, and it made everything feel so much worse.

"We never met…" he mumbled, pulling his beloved straw hat further down over his eyes. A moment later, he gave a light smile as he noticed that he once again had his hat with him, but the feeling of faint joy was brief and faded quickly just like the pale grin on his lips.

Everything he had been through… Everything _they_ had been through _together_… Had it all been just a dream? Did his nakama even exist in this world, or had he just dreamed them into existing in his mind? No… That just couldn't be true. Dreams weren't that detailed and he had never before dreamed of people who ended up meaning so much to him! Therefore, this had to be yet another trick by that other Luffy…

_Do you even believe that yourself?_

Clamping his hands over his ears didn't help to drown out the little voice inside his head that told him that he had only been sleeping for a few hours. It wasn't even three days since he had left his island and the little village there, and he was still at least a month's journey away from even reaching the Grand Line. And then there was the giant whirlpool just ahead of him.

Luffy blinked and eased the pressure his hands put over his ears. The _what_ just ahead of him?

When he saw the enormous whirlpool, his little boat was already hopelessly caught in it. His eyes darted around, desperate to find something - _anything_ - that could keep him from being dragged down into the whirlpool.

It was in the last moment he managed to open the lid of the large, empty barrel and climbed into it, making sure that his hat was still on his head before he shut himself inside the wooden drum and waited.

The barrel's walls were solid enough to keep the water from seeping in, but not thick enough to keep the horrible sound of the whirl out. It was a rushing, howling, gnawing, gargling sound and it rang in his ears while he was pressing his back against the wall of the barrel to avoid getting thrown around while the whirl devoured his boat.

Someone had once told Luffy that whirlpools can be caused by an underwater reef blocking a current. He had never really understood why that would be such a big deal. But even Luffy had no problem to understand that when a barrel is hurled towards a large rock with the speed of streaming water, it breaks like a house of cards in a mild breeze.

When the shield of wood around him was shattered and the icing cold water surrounded him, Luffy stubbornly turned his eyes towards what he thought had to be the surface, looking for any sign of his nakama coming to save him. His body was paralyzed to the point where he could only move his hands to cover his mouth and nose if he gathered all his willpower, but he still held his eyes on that source of light high above him that surely had to be the surface, where dawn was breaking just like any other day.

They would come. They wouldn't leave him there, not in the water, not alone in the dark. Never mind if it was all a dream, his nakama wouldn't let him down. He would be saved and be brought to the Going Merry, where he would laugh at Usopp's stories together with Chopper, pretend to listen to Nami when she explained something to him and cheer wildly while Sanji and Zoro got into yet another fight that would rock Going Merry to the point where she would be close to sinking. And he would help Vivi get back to her country, just as he had promised. Promises were made to be kept, and he would never let his nakama down, just like they would never fail him.

Not even when he could not hold his breath any longer did Luffy stop looking for the flurry of bubbles that would announce the dark figures he hoped would come for him.

Not even as his body forced him to take a deep breath which made the cold water rush into his lungs did the images of his friends' smiling faces fade from his mind's eye.

Not even when his heart sent one last surge of oxygen-starved blood through his veins did the sound of their voices stop chiming like golden bells in his ears.

Not even as his body sank to the bottom of the Eastern Ocean did the determination and faith in his nakama vanish from his still open eyes.

The eyes of the boy who strived tobecome the King of the Pirates remained open even as the world around him faded out into nothing at all.

* * *

_Why do I insist on writing sentences that all start with the same words at the end like that? Even I'm annoyed over that... And what's up with the edit-tool and creating run-ons? e-e Meh..._

_**Digitaldreamer** - I originally intended to let Luffy see what would happen to Sanji ( I almost wrote 'Shanks' there o-O;) ifthey nevermet, and place them inan older,run-down Baratie, where a grown-up Sanji is all alone, still trying to find a way to rid himself of the guilt and the feeling that he still has to repay the old man for saving his life, even though Zeff has been dead for years. But I decided not to do that out of two reasons: **1.)** I would mean I would have let horrible things happen to Sanji, and it would have ended with me making him pretty much insane, which in my opinionwould be kind of stupid... And **2.)**Pure laziness XD Anyway, yeah Krieg got what was coming for him. The bastard... Although I do think he's quite an interesting enemy._

_**Shi** - Don't apologize, having a unique pen name is great. Thanks for letting me use the short version, though. -grins- You know, I usually say that when I'm tired as well. Not much can stand between me and my sleep, except if I get inspired to write, because then I can stay up all night._

_**For all of you who reads but doesn't review**- I know that you're there, I can see you clicking the 'next chapter' button. Ke ke ke, just kidding._

_Note: We're not done here yet, so stay tuned... X3_


	8. Awakening

With their captain's voice calling their names still ringing in their ears, the Straw Hat Pirates woke up and gasped for air in unison.

In her cabin below the main storage room, Nami sat upright in her bed, her hands frantically grasping at her orange hair and at her face. She stared out in the dimly lit cabin, her eyes darting around as if she expected someone to be there, looming over her like a shadow. But the cabin was empty, and the only sound that was heard was the soft creaking of Merry's hull and a distant call of seagulls gathering somewhere on the ocean near the ship.

"What a nightmare…" Nami muttered to herself as she swung her legs over the edge of her bed and reached for her shoes. She definitely didn't want to go back to sleep with that dream still in her thoughts.

At the same time, in the men's cabin below deck, the four male crewmembers awoke in a small, almost controlled chaos. No one knew exactly who woke up first, but while Sanji accused Zoro of being so noisy that he could raise the dead, Zoro objected and said that he only woke up because Chopper had fallen out of his hammock and landed directly on the swordsman's face again. Chopper on the other hand claimed with tears still streaming from his eyes that he had woken up - and fallen out of his hammock out of pure surprise - because Usopp had screamed, and Usopp said that he woke up because Sanji had been cursing loudly so early in the morning.

For a moment or two, there was a loud cacophony of voices filling the lower cabin, where everyone were either complaining about having their sleep interrupted, cursing out the others for being too damn noisy too damn early in the damn morning, or simply screaming nonsense because their minds had yet to return to a state of actual consciousness.

When no one could come up with anything to say without repeating themselves for a third time, the noise in the cabin faded out into silence, and left the four crewmembers standing there, still rubbing their eyes and yawning widely. Sanji was the first one to break the dazed silence as he fished out a cigarette from the breast pocket of his shirt and lit it casually.

"Whatever," he said coolly, casting one last accusing glare at Zoro before turning to climb the ladder to the upper deck. "I might just as well startmaking breakfast, since you noisy bastards probably woke poor Nami-san from her beauty-sleep."

And with that, he left the cabin, completely ignoring the others telling him that he had been the one who had started shouting in the first place.

Closing the hatch to the lower cabin, Sanji straightened up and stretched. Sitting by the mast all night was murder for the back, and he was thankful that he could find another place to sleep the next night. The joints in his arms, back and legs gave faint popping sounds as they softened up and became easier to move. Yup, he would definitely find another place to sleep at this coming night.

Feeling a bit more refreshed, but still rubbing his lightly aching neck, Sanji walked across the deck and up the stairs towards the galley. Carefully stepping over the sleeping Carue, who lay curled up with his beak tucked under his wing outside the galley door, the cook entered his domain.

In a way, he had already predicted that he would find Luffy in the galley, since the captain hadn't been down in the men's quarters earlier. However, a small part of his mind had been annoyingly optimistic as it had tried to convince him that he would find his captain caught in the giant mousetrap or in one of the snares, and it was that part of him that was deeply disappointed as he stepped into the room.

Even in the dim light from the not yet risen sun, Sanji could see the many empty plates covering the table to his left. And there, between the stacks of plates, the cook could clearly see the outline of a person leaning over the table top.

Walking across the room, a vein swelling mildly in his temple at the thought of all the food that had to have vanished during the few hours he had left the kitchen unguarded. As he reached up to light the lamp hanging from the ceiling, he expected the sleeping captain to stir or at least make some sound in response to the sudden flash of light. However, he was disappointed, as Luffy didn't even move where he sat with his head against the wooden table. Disappointed and a little creeped out.

"Luffy?" he tried, keeping his voice steady and a bit accusing, since he had no intention to let his captain think that stealing food was okay. Still no response.

"Luffy, come on, get up, I have to make breakfast," he tried, a little louder this time, accompanied with a light shake to the captain's shoulder.

The creeped-out feeling only grew stronger when Luffy didn't even twitch by the mentioning of 'breakfast', and it was soon transformed into cold terror, as Sanji leaned over his sleeping captain, only to find that the boy's eyes were wide open and empty. Blinking, the thought '_Who sleeps with their eyes open?'_ had the time to form in Sanji's mind before he noticed that there wasn't even the slightest rise and/or fall of the boy's narrow chest. Luffy wasn't breathing.

Being forced to deal with something like this in that time in the morning, Sanji couldn't think of anything else than to do something he usually never would do.

He panicked.

– e – e –

Just like any morning aboard the Going Merry, the rest of the Straw Hat crew began to slowly prepare themselves for a new day shortly after Sanji had entered the galley to make breakfast. Diffuse calls of _'Come on, you've been in there forever'_, _'Don't use up all the warm water'_, _'What warm water? You used the last drop of warm water last night'_, _'Oh, I'm so hungry'_, _'Zoro, get your lazy ass of the couch and pump up some water'_ and _'Do it yourself!' _could be heard all the way up to the crow's nest, where Vivi was just gathering her empty tea mug and a book she had borrowed from Nami and wrapped them in the blanket she had wrapped herself in during her guard shift. With the bundle held tightly in her arms, she started to climb down from the crow's nest.

There was something she had forgotten about - she could feel it poking at the back of her mind, but couldn't seem to remember what it could be.

– e – e –

Since he had been the first one to get up from the cabin below deck, only minutes after Sanji, Usopp was also the first one to emerge from the main storage and the bathroom to greet the new day. Or rather stare grumpily at the all too bright sun for a moment before deciding that it could be ignored until after breakfast. He turned his eyes towards the main mast just as Vivi made her descent from the crow's nest where she had spent the night during her guard-shift.

"Good morning, Usopp-san," she called down to him, leaping down the last few meters onto the deck. "Did you sleep well?"

"Morning," Usopp replied, bending his stiff neck left and right. "Yeah, pretty well. Most of the night, anyway. I had this really creepy dream…"

"You had nightmares as well?"

Usopp and Vivi both turned towards the main storage, from which Nami just walked out onto the main deck, looking a bit more tired than she usually did in the mornings. Usopp nodded and folded his arms across his chest, shivering lightly in the chilly morning air He wished that he had kept his t-shirt on instead of throwing it in the growing pile of dirty clothes down in the cabin.

"Yeah. You too?"

"Oh, I forgot!" Vivi's hands moved to cover her mouth as she looked at the marksman and the navigator with an apologizing look in her eyes. "I meant to tell you… In these waters, there are certain places called Dark Spots. They're places were bloody battles were fought, and where many ships have sunk over the centuries. They say that one can see signs of increased paranormal activity in these places. In short, Dark Spots are places where you can see ghost ships or see ghosts walk around on your own ship."

"G-ghosts?" Usopp stammered, suddenly turning three shades paler. "O-oi, Vivi, you're supposed to tell us these things in advance!"

"I-I'm sorry," Vivi said, bowing apologetically. "Anyway, if we're in the area I think we're in, it would explain the nightmares…"

"Only if the others had nightmares as well," Nami filled in, looking both curious and critical at the same time. "So, what kind of 'ghosts' are there here?"

"Well, it is said that a pirate ship sank here over a hundred years ago," Vivi said, tugging at a few strands of her blue hair. "The ship's name was Pilgrim, and the captain was a well-known man who was nicknamed 'Whitecape', because of the pure white cape he always wore.

"Somehow, they had lost their Log Pose, and were therefore hopelessly lost in the Grand Line. No one knows exactly what led up to it, but they say that Whitecape went insane and slaughtered every single one in his crew, and then the ship mysteriously sank to the bottom of the ocean. He's said to haunt the dreams of anyone who anchors here, and people are said to have died in their sleep in this area. They say that he detests seeing people sailing together, because he feels guilty for what he did to his own crew."

"W-w-what are you saying, Vivi?" Usopp asked, his knees trembling lightly. "You mean that we could have all just died in our sleep, because of some guy who kills us in our dreams or something?"

"Come to think of it," Nami said thoughtfully. "I think I remember someone dressed in white in my dream. I could just see him in the corner of my eye, as if he wanted me to know that he was there…"

"Haa…?" Usopp thought for a moment, his brow knitted together in a deep frown. "I think I saw him as well… In my dream, I was back on that slope outside Syrup Village, trying to defend my home from the pirates. I was all alone against the pirates, and when I realized that I wasn't going to be able to hold them back, I just tried to shoot the leader, but…"

"But?" Nami urged Usopp to continue, clearly eager to hear what happened next.

"But one of the pirates aimed a gun at my head and fired. Just as I thought that I could feel the bullet hit me, I heard Luffy's voice calling my name, and that's when I woke up."

"That's just like my dream," Nami said, a bit less eagerly, but still with a curious tone in her voice. "Only I wasn't shot. But I heard Luffy's voice right before I woke up."

"Chopper had a really bad dream," Usopp nodded towards the little reindeer, who had stumbled out onto the deck while shielding his eyes from the sun with his cloven hooves. "He said something about Wapol eating him alive, and he was really shaken when he woke up. I don't know about the others, though."

"Speaking of others," Nami interrupted, placing her hands on her hips and looking about the main deck. "Has anyone seen Luffy yet?"

"He wasn't downstairs when we woke up," Usopp said simply, shrugging. "I guess he snuck up to the galley to steal food again. Sanji'll probably kick him out at any moment now. I think Zoro fell asleep again when we left the cabin…"

"Jeez…" Nami slapped her hand against her forehead with an annoyed grimace, but she didn't say anything else, since Chopper reached up to them and shyly asked them if they had had bad dreams as well.

– e – e –

There are many ways of waking up. Some are pleasant, while others are not so pleasant. Waking up with the rich smell of a healthy and delicious breakfast tickling your senses is pleasant, while having your face slammed so hard against a table that your skin feels like it is about to fuse with the wood, at the same time the heel of a custom-made shoe is threatening to shatter your skull… is somewhat less pleasant. Unfortunately for everyone aboard the pirate ship Going Merry, the former way of waking has always been shortly followed by the latter, or sometimes even replaced by the latter - at least when it comes to the ship's captain.

When Luffy woke up, he found himself in just that situation, with his face flattened out against the wooden table in the galley of Going Merry and the hard heel of a custom-made shoe pressing him - if possible - even further down. It took a few seconds before he was aware of anything except for that feeling of the stretchable bones of his skull bending in places that shouldn't bend even on him, but then he heard Sanji's voice over the slam that still rang in his head.

"Wake up, damn it!"

When the pressure that Sanji's foot put on Luffy's head was released, the captain flew backwards from the table by the light recoil his face made as it no longer needed to be flattened out against the wood. Gasping for air, almost as if he just had been dragged out of the water, Luffy landed on his back on the floor where he sleepily looked up at Sanji, now feeling a light pain in his head. The look on his cook's face was hard to read; there was both anger and (worry?) something else his eyes that Luffy couldn't see.

"Sanji? Wat izzit?" he mumbled, rubbing his eyes that kept casting his vision out of focus whenever he blinked. He found that a strange burning sensation had located itself in his lungs, and he took a few deep breaths in order to ease it a little.

Sanji sighed deeply and placed one hand on his hip while the other rubbed his forehead lightly.

"Damn it, Luffy. Don't do that, you scared the shit out of me," he said.

"Don't do what?" Luffy asked, his head turning from side to side as he looked around the galley in confusion. Now this was strange. He had been under water only a minute ago, struggling to hold his breath. He knew that, because he had felt (and was almost certain that he still could feel it) every single painful heartbeat that urged him to refill his burning lungs with anything that contained oxygen, even if it meant the water around him.

"Don't do what, you ask?" Sanji said hotly, but he cooled down a bit when he noticed Luffy's disoriented expression. "Never mind, I was just going to wake you up so that I could throw you out and start with the breakfast - _if there's any food left on the ship_! Now, get out."

The fact that most people wouldn't even think about waking someone up by squashing their head against a table didn't even occur to Luffy. Mostly because he was still a bit drowsy, but also because that was the way his nakama usually woke him up, and he found it rather normal to wake up with a foot, staff or even fist whacking him over the head.

"Sorry, Sanji," Luffy said with a light whine to his voice. He hadn't missed the change in Sanji's tone when he mentioned the stolen food, and he didn't really want to anger his cook any more this early in the morning. "I just had a bad dream, that's all."

"Che." Sanji ran his hand through his hair and began picking up all Luffy's plates from the table. "Yeah, well… That's what you get for eating… _fourteen_ rations of meat after midnight."

While Luffy picked himself off the floor, still with a very sleepy expression on his face, Sanji carried the gravy-glazed plates to the sink where he immediately began washing them.

"Come to think of it, I think I had a really weird dream myself," he said, while scrubbing a particularly greasy plate more intensely. "But I don't remember what it was about."

Luffy bent down to pick up his hat that was lying on the floor next to the bench he had been sitting on. Caressing the three lines of stitches over the top of the hat, he pressed it down over his head. He watched as Sanji slowly but safely made the tall stack of dirty plates shrink at the same time a stack of clean plates was growing next to it.

"Was it about the Baratie?" he finally asked, not able to keep quiet any longer.

Sanji turned around to look at his captain, confusion written all over his face for a second before he gathered himself again.

"Yeah… How did you know that?"

Luffy simply grinned widely as he bounced up to Sanji and gave his cook a tight bear hug. He was really happy that the nightmare had just been a nightmare, and he was even happier to be awake than he had ever been before.

"I don't know," he said simply and turned to walk out through the door. "Tell me when breakfast is ready, Sanji!"

"Don't I always?"

Sanji raised a curled eyebrow as he watched his captain, who bounced out through the door, cheerfully singing a newly composed song of some kind. He gave a light sigh and shrugged before going back to washing the dishes. He'd never be able to figure out how the mind of his captain worked, but he had a feeling that he didn't want to know either. But finding the boy lying over the table with his eyes wide open and without breathing had in all honesty scared the living hell out of him. It had made him think of all the stories he had heard as a kid about people who had just simply died in their sleep without any apparent reason, even though he had trouble imagining Luffy die at all.

No, there was no time to think about that. Now that the dishes were done, he could start with the breakfast. This time, he'd make sure that the old man Zeff couldn't say anything bad about his cooking.

_Wait a minute… What?_ Sanji hesitated in the middle of a step towards the refrigerator. Where the hell had that come from? As far as he knew, the old man was way back in East Blue. _Must have been that dream I had…Damn old geezer, if he can't pick on me in person, he haunts my dreams._

– e – e –

The mornings aboard the Going Merry had always been noisy, and this one was no exception, even as the sun had barely risen over the horizon. Down on the main deck, there was a large commotion, apparently caused mainly by Zoro, who didn't seem to appreciate being doused in icy cold water that early in the morning. Nami, on the other hand, was doing quite a good job defending her actions loudly by pointing out that too much sleep would only make him grow weaker. To this, the swordsman didn't seem to have a good answer, but he stubbornly refused to give up.

However, it wasn't the voices of his nakama that kept Luffy occupied. He was lying over the neck of the figurehead with his head propped against his hands and his elbows placed just above Merry's eyes.

"… and then, they shot him, just like that. And those other pirates shot Usopp, too. And Nami was with that stupid Arlong-guy again…"

He grinned as Merry creaked just as he stopped speaking, and he nodded cheerfully.

"I know. It wouldn't have been the same without any of them. I'm really glad I met them, and I'm glad I met you too. You're the best ship ever."

He stretched out his arms and legs to wrap them around the neck of Merry's figurehead in a tight hug. Another rasping creak was heard from the depths of the ship, and Luffy didn't have to use his imagination to understand what Merry had to say. He knew that she loved and depended on them just as much as they loved and depended on her.

An image of Merry lying on her side near the port of Syrup Village, her hull completely shattered and covered in long, even slashes suddenly flashed through Luffy's mind, and he opened his eyes. Peering down towards the water, he thought for a moment that he saw something white just below the surface; something that only rose to the surface and then sank again, as if to check up on him.

"I knew that you were lying…" Luffy said quietly, his eyes still fixed on the glittering water below. "I knew that you weren't the King of Pirates… And I told you that I wouldn't let you touch them…"

Ever since Vivi had told Luffy about the Dark Spot and what was said to have happened there, the captain thought that he understood what had happened during the night, and he wasn't happy about it. However, as he watched the spot where he had seen the piece of the white cloak rise to the surface, he felt that they were out of harm's way, and that he no longer needed to be on his guard to protect his nakama.

Releasing the tight grip around the figurehead, Luffy rolled over to lie on his back and peered up towards the crow's nest, from which Vivi just began climbing down, her foldedblanketheld tightly against her chestin the chilly morning air. He lay still there and watched the clouds go by in the sky above for a moment, before he pushed his hat over his eyes while waiting for Sanji's breakfast call.

While Zoro and Nami continued their bickering, Carue was running around on the deck, quacking loudly and flapping his wings while Chopper did his best to translate what the duck was saying about some dream he had had. It was safe to say that the translation did not make much more sense than the loud quacking. But Luffy grinned under the brim of his hat and tucked his hands behind his head.

The sound of his nakama quarreling had never sounded more wonderful so early in the morning.

/End.


End file.
